by Vinyl301 -

Various Artists: Beauty

R-1292328-1277677621

The Pink Label, 1987.  PINKY 15

Discogs

“One Of The Dads” asked for some McCarthy recently.  I’m pretty sure I don’t have anything other than this rather fine Pink compilation, but they were a great label with a strong identity, so I hope he enjoys it.

That Petrol Emotion have appeared here before and will do again in future; Keen was their first single.  Rumblefish were quite a favourite back in the day – I’m an absolute sucker for an earnest pop song with a trumpet part, but they have a retrospective out, so I can’t post anything other than this.  There’ll be more from the June Brides at some point too.  Of all the tracks here it’s The Wolfhounds’ Anti-Midas Touch  which is most familiar, which is odd as I have nothing by them other than this.  I guess Peel must have played it a lot.

I’ve done a spot of re-uploading in the last few days.  Anything with 4shared, zshare or slingfile links will work.  A few ultramegabit links still work too.  If you’ve missed anything, it could well be up again.  Let me know if there’s anything I’ve missed.

by Vinyl301 -

Thick Pigeon: Too Crazy Cowboys

Front

Factory 1984.  FACT 85

Discogs

This album is something of a forgotten chapter in the history of Factory.  It was the band’s only album, although there were also a handful of singles.  Label aside, this release has a few claims to fame: firstly Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris, half of New Order play on the album, composer Carter Burwell went on to score all the Coen Brothers films, while the singer, Stanton Miranda worked with Kim Gordon pre Sonic Youth and appeared in Silence Of The Lambs among other well known films.

On to the music.  Well, it’s 80s synthpop, but there’s rather more too it than that, as you’d expect from its provenance.  The New Order sound is obvious in places, and the genre is taken somewhere which is by turns avant garde and really quite dark.  It’s very much of its time, but I think the artistic merit of the album shines through anyway

by Vinyl301 -

UI: Match My Foot

Folder

Soul Static Sound 1996.  SOUL11

Discogs

I got really into the whole maths rock thing in the mid 90s.  Tortoise of course, but I was also into Trans-Am and this band UI.  Maths rock, for the uninitiated is a kind of guitary, jazzy, pseudo-intellectual sub category of indie-rock, usually without vocals.  UI were rather funkier than the rest, and this single is a nice example of what they were about.  The b side is a pretty radically dubbed out version which works if you like that kind of thing.

UI has appeared on here before on the Monsters, Robots and Bugmen compilation, which is highly recommended if you like this 7″.

by Vinyl301 -

Telex: Rock Around The Clock

Folder

Sire 1979.  SIR 4020

Discogs

I stopped listening to chart music a long time ago.  I guess that’s partly because of my advancing years, but it’s also because records like this never make it these days.  It’s completely bonkers and the idea that someone at Sire thought it would sell is hilarious.  These days the dead hand of the marketing man has squeezed this sort of thing completely out of the mainstream.  I was 13 when this came out and bought it because I thought it was funny, and nearly 35 years down the line it still is.

The A side is a very deadpan electronic cover of Bill Haley’s awful Rock Around The Clock.  In fact it was more than just hilarious – it was groundbreaking too.  OK, Kraftwerk had been making electronic music for ages, but this was one of the earliest attempts at entirely electronic dance music.  Describing it as hilarious implies that it’s just a novelty record, but it’s actually very effective.

The B side, Moskow Diskow is much less of a novelty record, but really that’s only because it was written by Telex.  The style is very similar.  I played it to a friend who’s much more into clubbing than I am and it turns out it’s a bit of a classic.  I guess you can’t really get away with playing the A side in a club, but I can see that the B side would really work with the peculiar sound really old electronic records usually have.

The incompetent A&R guy at Sire had the last laugh with this one though – against the odds it charted.

by Vinyl301 -

Various Artists: Lunacy Is Legend EP

R-2085853-1275284600

Barracuda Blue Records 1987.  12UTA9

Discogs

As you’ve probably noticed, I haven’t had much time lately to post stuff here, or to do vinyl rips.  That’s because I became a dad for the first time last week, so priorities have shifted a bit.  Things are calming down now so I’ll get back to it, but from now on the pace will be a bit slower.

I’m also having filehost trouble – all music bloggers get it at some point.  Ultramegabit are taking down files much faster than they’re supposed to, bitshare are terminally unreliable and my 4shared account is pretty much full.  So I need another free filehost who doesn’t take files down, but have no time right now to look for one.  Any suggestions gratefully received.

In the meantime, here’s a rather obscure EP which is mostly a Marc Bolan tribute.  The real draw here is Nikki Sudden whose massive body of work is consistently worthwhile.  Here he contributes a rather pleasing acoustic version of Sailors Of The Highway.  The Times later signed for Creation and are mostly an Ed Ball solo project – his version of The Slider adds a nice grungy element to the song.  I know nothing at all about the Necessitarians, nor why of the three tracks they contribute only one is a Bolan cover.

There are more detailed notes about this release than I can be bothered to write here.