The Very Things: Mummy, You’re A Wreck

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Reflex Records 1985.  12Re09

Discogs

FuseRed from the excellent Radio Session blog asked for a re-up of a fine Very Things album I posted a while back, which reminded me of this equally fine single.  The A side (which I think is a cover) deals with one of the bands numerous obsessions – 1950s B movie horror, not that they sound anything at all like the Cramps.  In fact the singer sounds like he’s from a 1920s music hall, backed by an 80s indie band.  The B side abandons the horror theme with a tale about the mess father got in when he did some wallpapering.  I realise none of this sounds terribly appealing, but this is a great single.  I’ve also re-upped the album if you want more.

On a more mundane subject, I’m having filehost problems.  Ultramegabit are doing some sort of maintenance, which has meant their links have been very temperamental for a few days.  The files are still there, so I’m hoping they’ll sort things soon.  I have no time to move the files somewhere else, so you’ll just have to be patient.  While you’re waiting you could check out some older posts – pretty much everything with 4shared, zshares and mega links should be working.  Most of the slingfile links are down, but that still leaves around 140 working.

This file is on rapidshare which is an experiment.  Let me know how it goes and maybe I’ll use them more.

Various Artists: Revenge Of The Killer Pussies

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Anagram 1984.  GRAM17

Discogs

This is a fun compilation of what I guess you’d call psychobilly – an amalgam of rockabilly and punk which continues from where The Cramps left off, and shares their love of B-Movie horror.

The three best tracks are back-to-back at the end of side 1 – The Milkshakes, The Vibes and The Meteors – it’s pretty hard to sit still when they come on.  The Very Things have featured here before, and put in a decent showing on Side 2.

The Very Things: Motortown

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One Little Indian 1987. TPLP6.

Discogs

The Very Things described themselves as Dadaists, which I guess they were but it’s not a helpful guide to what they sounded like.  The problem is that they didn’t really sound like anyone else.  There’s a Cramps style interest in 1950s b movie sci-fi kitcsh, a bit of music hall, some motown (as the name of this mini album suggests) and some mid 80s indie guitar.  That all sounds like a bit of a car crash, but they made some fine records, this being one of them.

They must also be the best thing ever to come out of Redditch, a godforsaken new town just outside Birmingham, which maybe inspired the motortown thing.  An alien landing there could be forgiven for thinking it’s populated by cars and the weird two legged creatures are some sort of parasite they have to endure.