Momus: Right Hand Heart 7″

Folder

Creation Records 1988.  CRE-FRE 3

Not separately listed on Discogs.

This 7″ was given away free with the first few copies of Momus’s best (I think) album, Tender Pervert. Both tracks seem to be demos, although info about this release is hard to come by.

What I do know is that this is one of the shoddiest 7″ singles I own. It’s pressed off centre, is distorted and crackles a fair bit. I thought about not bothering posting it, but it deals well with Momus’s biggest musical problem, which is burying his songs under loads of bland and/or irritating arrangements. These much simpler versions work far better, and so it’s worth putting up with the poor sound quality. Alan McGee apparently agreed – he liked Momus’s demos more than the released versions.

Momus is still recording, although I’ve bought nothing for at least a decade so no real recommendations. He’s written books too which I might check out at some point.

Tracklisting:

Right Hand Heart
The Poison Boyfriend (1982)

Terry Snyder and the Allstars: Persuasive Percussion Vol 2

Folder

Pye Records Command, 1960.  PCLS 808

Discogs

This has to be my favourite ever charity shop purchase.  I used to hope for some rare gem which might complement music I already have, but the real joy of charity shops is the completely insane music they’re often full of, and which, unless you’re in Oxfam, are rarely more than a quid.

In one of my rants on this blog I moan about MP3s and the curse of music for people who don’t like music.  This is also music for people who don’t like music, but from a different and less cynical era.  The sleeve notes give the game away.  There’s nothing there at all about the music or the musicians, just a marketing blurb about how great it sounds and absurd technical data no-one could ever possibly want to know or even understand.  We’re even told the manufacturer and model number of the lathe used to cut the master disc!  This record was made in the early days of hi-fi, when an expensive stereo was essential for the upwardly mobile business executive to display alongside his G-Plan furniture, swirly orange carpets, nylon shirts and trophy wife.  The problem for said executive was that he needed something to play on his absurdly expensive gear, but knew as much about music as the average X-Factor viewer does today.  That lead very quickly to a lucrative market in music aimed at the clueless middle classes, of which this is a very good example.

It needed to have several features to work in this market.  The cover was really important; the front had to look good with contemporary interior decor, and the sleevenotes had to flatter the buyer’s knowledge of hi-fi.  It also had to sound good – and often they really did.  This album is one of the best sounding LPs I’ve ever heard which is amazing when you consider that it’s over 50 years old and isn’t in pristine condition.  It had to have as many wacky stereo effects as possible – stereo was very new back then, and it was necessary to be able to show off to the neighbours when you’d spent the money on something so exotic.  Finally it had to sound sophisticated.  This meant jazz, or at least a dumbed down kitsch version of it with instrumental pyrotechnics, but remaining at all times conservative and undemanding.

So why might you want to listen to this music, cynically produced and marketed for a particularly nauseating section of the population?  Well partly because it is an amazing period piece – it takes you right back to 1960 more powerfully than anything else I can think of.  What it lacked in authenticity at the time it now has in spades as a cultural artefact from 1960.  But it’s also worth listening to because despite all the hideous marketing that went on to shift this record, the actual business of making the music was left to, well, musicians.  So underneath all the kitsch, a lot of this stuff is actually pretty inventive and very groovy.  This is what sets it apart from X Factor – on that show and many like it, the marketing guys control the music, but here, while the musicians have to work within parameters set by the marketing guys, they were left to their own devices, so if you like music, there’s something for you here.

The Auteurs: Back With The Killer

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Hut Recordings 1995. HUTCD65

Discogs

This is mostly of interest to me because it was produced by Steve Albini, although the man himself prefers the term “recorded”.  That aside, The Auteurs were an interesting outfit, rather darker than the usual guitar based indie stuff around at the time, as the title suggests.  Main man Luke Haines was always curiously uncomfortable with fronting such a band and was always at pains to distance himself from his peers.  It’s easy to dismiss that as wishful thinking on his part, but the discomfort comes across on this EP and makes it a pleasingly edgy listen.

The title track was taken from their album After Murder Park (see the theme emerging here) but the other three are exclusives.   Don’t think though that they’re rejects.  Well, maybe they were but it’s a consistently strong EP.  Maybe I should get the album…

R.E.M.: Begin The Begin

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On Stage 1993 (Bootleg).  CD12033

Discogs

I uploaded this as a favour for someone, so thought I might as well put it in my blog too. It’s a bootleg of a 1989 gig in Florida which I bought years ago in the supermarket at the end of my road. An odd place to find a bootleg I thought.

To be brutally frank, I’ve never liked it much. The performance isn’t the best and neither is the sound quality. I think the studio albums are much better, and if you want a bootleg, there are better ones than this. However if you’re a fan it’s good to have.

Better stuff tomorrow I promise. Or maybe the day after – I’ll be at a film festival all day tomorrow.

King Of The Slums: Vicious British Boyfriend EP

R-400390-1223187106

Play Hard Records 1989.  DEC 14

Discogs

Angry men with guitars and an angry woman with an electric violin is very good combination, so much so that this has rarely strayed far from my turntable.  The manic violin playing is so good that it’s hard to see why more bands don’t use them.  I guess violins are difficult to play.

King Of The Slums were a Manchester band who got the sort of underground recognition (and airplay from Peel) you’d expect for a band of this calibre, although they sounded like no-one else, especially in 1989, and never got any sort of mainstream success.

The first track, Fanciable Headcase is an absolute monster.  I defy you to sit still while it’s playing, and not to play it again immediately and then bore all your friends with it.  It really is that good.

I’m not sure why there’s a picture of horrible racist Enoch Powell on the cover – maybe it fueled the anger on the record.  The union jack behind him is pink.  Haven’t figured that one out either, but I expect Enoch Powell was also homophobic so maybe that’s why.

Everything by the band is of course long deleted, although according to their truly dreadful web site, there are a few bits and pieces available on itunes.

Pigbros: Cheap Life

Panorama

Backs Records 1986.  12NCH 110

Discogs

In the mid 80s it seemed like I saw Pigbros play every week.  They were local and they were good, and seeing bands (unlike buying records) was cheap back then.  Often they’d be playing with Mighty Mighty, whose BBC sessions I posted a while ago, although Pigbros were an altogether darker prospect than their jangly buddies.

They were very much a part of the Birmingham music scene – Nic Beale had been in The Nightingales, Fuzz Townsend, the drummer, who I first became aware of as a busker drumming on an old tin bath which became part of his drumkit in Pigbros, later joined Pop Will Eat Itself (he was wasted there I thought, but I guess it was fun and paid the bills), Svor Naan went by various aliases and was in The Cravats, and Jonathan Cooke – sorry, no idea.

This track was really powerful live and sounds pretty good here, although I guess they didn’t have the cash to create such a full sound in the studio.  Looking back, they split before they really reached their potential; they were certainly one of the more creative outfits on the local circuit.

Sonic Youth/Mudhoney: Touch Me I’m Sick/Halloween

Sonic Youth

Blast First 1989.  BFFP 46

Discogs

More Sonic Youth cover versions today.  This is a split single; on the A side Sonic Youth cover a Mudhoney song, and on the B side, Mudhoney cover a Sonic Youth song, all done as a promotion for their UK tour that year.  Both bands were on great form and it shows on this really strong pairing.

This is a first pressing (with mauve cover) if anyone’s bothered about such things.

Sonic Youth: 4 Tunna Brix

front

Goofin’ Records 1990.  GOO 01

Discogs

As promised, some more weird Fall covers, this time from Sonic Youth.  This was a Peel session from 1989, and, as I recall at the time, The Fall’s Mark E Smith was so upset by it that he refused to sanction the release.  It was immediately bootlegged, and this was the best sounding of them.

Mark E Smith’s reaction was an odd one, because Sonic Youth are huge Fall fans, and these are very respectful cover versions.  Even Victoria, originally a Kinks track, is played as the Fall rather than The Kinks did, although it does sound a bit like a drunken singalong.

Despite all of this it has Sonic Youth’s signature guitar sound – their guitars were heavily modified and with weird tunings, although not being a guitarist, I wouldn’t know about such things.

Rumour has it that Sonic Youth themselves bootlegged this, presumably irritated by Mark E Smith’s reaction to it, which would explain the excellent sound quality.  They would of course have had access to the master tapes.

Terry Edwards: Salutes The Magic Of The Fall

terry_edwards-terry_edwards_salutes_the_magic_of_the_fall

STIM Records 1991. STIM002

Discogs

Very few people cover Fall tracks, and with good reason; getting egg on your face is almost inevitable.  However, doing something completely off the wall can work, and this is an example – Terry Edwards does jazz/ska versions of some of their early classics which work surprisingly well.  They’re funny, funky and very unexpected.  Despite deservedly positive reviews at the time, and not just in the music press, this didn’t sell at all.

Tracklisting:

Totally Wired
Bingo Masters Breakout
The Dice Man
Container Drivers

More strange Fall covers to follow….

 

Various Artists: Edward Not Edward (Edward Barton Tribute)

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Wooden Records 1989.  WOOD 7

Discogs

This is a remarkable album by any standards.  On the face of it, it’s a tribute album to the maverick Manchester artist, Edward Barton, but there’s more to it than that.  The usual tribute album is about a long established, legendary artist (like the Neil Young tribute I posted a few days ago), and the performers are either newer artists or unknowns, but this is the other way around.  Many of the artists on this album were well established, at least in independent music circles, whereas Barton was little known.  It also appeared on Barton’s own label, Wooden, and it appears, was compiled by him.  The last odd element to this is how unlistenable Barton’s own performances of these songs were.  He was at the time best known for a disturbing appearance on The Tube where he performed I’ve Got No Chicken, But I’ve Got Five Wooden Chairs solo, playing his acoustic guitar with a wooden spoon with a manic vocal delivery which generated a surprising number of complaints, despite the absence of anything obviously offensive.

However, as this album shows, Barton was much more than a novelty act.  With his, er, difficult delivery removed and replaced by some of the best Manchester had to offer in 1989, his songs are revealed to be startlingly original, both musically and lyrically.  Apart from Chapter and the Verse’s contribution which hasn’t aged well, there’s hardly a duff track here.  Highlights are 808 State, whose inspired version of Sorry Dog features a couple of young kids on vocals and tells of a man’s feelings of  guilt after he shits on the floor and blames the dog.  The Ruthless Rap Assassins (more music from them at some point in the future) deal with the sorry tale of a car crash in Z Bend, also covered strangely poignantly by Ted Chippington.  I’d been listening to this album for years before I realised that when A Guy Called Gerald said “pump the jack” in Barber Barber that he was talking about the barber’s chair, not some sort of dance move I was way too uncool to be aware of.  As always, Gerald is excellent.

There’s a surprising amount of Edward Barton material available.  His new (ish) album which is by far his most accessible to date and really worth a punt is available here. It’s obvious his early releases didn’t sell well, so you can buy them direct here.  There are also a few free MP3s if you hunt around.

EdwardBarton-EdwardNotEdward-UK-LP-Tracklisting