Huggy Bear – "WeBitched" (Wiiija Records) 1992

There were other decent acts on Wiiija Records of course,although not Scottish,(i've almost ran out of unpopular Scottish ones now), but we do have some posh student girls in their angry years from the mean streets of Brighton.....life's hard there. Staunchly feminist, even the boys in the group,but we know what male feminists are really after don't we boys?

Named after Huggy Bear,the light relief in Starsky and Hutch; this Huggy Bear were a mixture of angry ladies and useful modern gentlemen, who made a very noisy form of the Riot Grrrl trend imported into Rave-culture obsessed Britain on the coat-tails of Grunge. Yeah, they had heard Bikini Kill and decided to have a go at that aggressive ladies malarkey.

Also, this gives me a chance to relay my Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch story again.....yeah,basically i met him in a pub in Leicester, and he bought me a Guinness,while he stuck to zero alcohol Kalibur! When i asked him what is he doing in a Pub in Leicester he replied,"It's good to get out and meet the people".....you won't find many of them round here I said......he had virtually no clue what i was going on about.

Never got to meet the saucy femme's in Huggy Bear from Brighton however.They would have hated me anyway during my lost weekend period back in the 90's.

Apparently They were on "The Word", the so uber trendy that it made one wanna piss on one's telly box,late night modern magazine programme on Channel 4, and performed a song in front of a hand-picked audience of trendy fuckers. The angry ladies in the group took offence at some twin models or something sillier, and one of them bit the face of a producer during a heated argument......shock bleeding horror...and it was compared to that Sex Pistols' absurdly lame Grundy thing.However ,unlike The Pistols group,it didn't catapult them to the top of the pop charts...not for want of trying though.

I once thought I'd like to have a Riot Gurl girlfriend, but had trouble with faking an interest in Feminist philosophy,and the walking on eggshells conversations,and the special needs type "wild" behavior was a turn off,and rather boring. They just wanted to  be a housewife  with a Husband really.

This cassette ain't half bad actually.

Tracklist:

A1 Can`t Kiss
A2 Into The Mission
A3 Coral Kill
A4 Sour Cream Stag
B1 Bumper Sticker (Version)
B2 Cherry Cherry
B3 Her Jazz
B3 T-Shirt Tucked In
B4 Blow Dry
B5 Hopscorch

DOWNLOAD future solicitors going ape HERE!

Silverfish – "T.F.A. E.P." (Wiiija Records – WIJ5) 1989

I thought this lot were american,but they weren't as well drilled.....geddit?...as american Noise Rock groups were,so I smelled a rat. They looked as if they met in a Pub,which is a dead give away,sure they're British,and that american twang in the lead screechers voice is because she's Scottish.....which gave me a reason to post this rather good EP,as I seem to be posting noisy groups from beyond Hadrian's Wall during the Grunge sickness of 1991 this week.

All band members have Dole Snooper avoiding names,like back in the halcyon days of Punk Rock, and that shouty female singer is listed as L.F.Rankine,Lesley to her new (in 1989) English friends.

While waiting for the next in a lengthening line of losing referendums which Scots Nationalists live in hope that one of them will eventually deliver the result that they dream of (be careful or it may just come true!). The Scottish are never slow in slagging off the English,and watching Braveheart over and over again(not bad for a film about a loser,a Scots tradition still adhered to faithfully today);but they can't seem to wait to escape to England at the first opportunity,and Lesley did just this,and ended up in one of the few bands in Britain not to have a funky drummer beat and an extraneous dancin' fool at the side of the stage in 1989.

Yep, you guessed it....Madchester was happening,or Shitchester as I prefer to call it.

Tracklist:

1.Total Fucking Asshole
2.Die
3.Driller

4.One Silver Dollar

DOWNLOAD it HERE! you total fucking arsehole!

Badgewearer – "F.T.Q." (Gruff Wit Records – GRUFF 0006) 1991

 As much as I was oblivious during the 1990's, there did seem to have been a limited rise in interest in noisy avant-math rock types with their feet dangling in the limpid pools of both the Magic Band and Jesus Lizard camps....in Scotland?  Up until Brit-pop,the 90's were one endless party, unless you like Grunge culture,so didn't really have time to listen to a lot of this stuff,when just owning a new wave of Jazz record made me instantly allurable to the fairer sex in those happy pre-consent form carrying days.A Badgewearer album wouldn't cut the mustard. I suppose Post-Rock was the 90's too wasn't it? That was a largely interesting way to nurse a hangover,and a toll-free highway back to the music that started all this...Progressive Rock.

In many ways this math-punk noise was indeed progressive Punk Rock that, in hindsight, would have been rather popular in my household were it not for the many distractions on offer.

Badgewearer was another production job by former Stretchhead 'Richie',and it certainly has a few reference points that hark all the way back to the C-86 era,with its high-speed plectrum blur guitar attak a la Wedding Present, bIG fLAME etc,and admirably disjointed like a Glaswegian Shrub(s).

Very Ron Johnson.

Dunno what F.T.Q. means,but i'm guessing ,'Fuck The Queen',which would have appealed thirty years ago,but now the Queen's a nice little old lady, who could possibly dislike her? If you do you're a T.F.A......see next post. As,The Queen is the rightful heir to the Russian Throne,maybe 'Fuck Putin' is more appropriate? Sever the head of the snake and replace the poisonous dwarf,built up heels and all, with good Queen Liz?

Oh Yeah,this record has a song called "Rod Stewart's Penis"....i bet the plastic Scotsman himself never needed a consent form?...oops, a little bit of sick just appeared in my throat!

Tracklist:

A1 Inflexible Expendable
A2 N'Alien Head
A3 Too Much Soap
A4 We Want Your Name
A5 Moneylenders/Cumbernauld
A6 Impersonal Stereo
A7 Karioke Casualty
B1 Aftershock
B2 Woollenhead And Ears
B3 Static
B4 Rod Stewart's Penis
B5 Syndex
B6 Satellite Dish
B7 Liquid Cosh

DOWNLOAD and hail the rightful queen of Russia HERE!

Dawson – "How To Follow So That Others Will Willingly Lead (Oh My Godley And Creme Cheese)" (Gruff Wit Records – GRUFF 005) 1991

Another crazy as a deep fried mars bar in a box of frogs groop,again from Scotland,and,containing a former Drummer of Stretchheads,is the unforgettably named, 'Dawson'.A derived from various band members' art teacher,who happened to be called...'Dawson'.And there was me hoping they were named after the great Lez Dawson...knickers,knackers,knockers missus!

For those who give a shit....in other words,if you;'re Scottish,they hale,or Hail,from...yeah that's right, Glasgow (pronounced Glaz Go)...or as Joe Biden says it, Glazz ,Gow as in Cow.

Plenty fractured chord sequences and obvious Beefheart influences here kemosabi ...think God is my Co-Pilot,The Shrubs, and Stretchheads with their amplifiers turned off.....very clever they seem to be...falling just short of too clever by 'arf.

Wasn't 1991 the year 'Punk' Broke in USA?...so we had to endure all these,as far as I could determine,heavy Rock groops from Seattle polluting our sceptered Isle with long greasy hair,checked shirts,and lots of quiet then noisy,then quiet,then Loud and so-on, rock songs,as if The Pixies had never existed. Once an ex-acquaintance boasted to me that he'd seen The Pixies six times; I said i could out do him on that one,as i've seen this band who looked like the cast of the Office,or more likely from a real Office, who'd formed a weekend Rock Group precisely ZERO times,and had no plans to change that.

But,the new wave of Punk had been hatched,and spawned a legion of white middle class nerds all claiming to have seen Nirvana when they were the support for Tad. Now if Tad were the only grunge band that existed.I'd be cool with that.....they were basically how Heavy Metal should sound but without the black trousers, topped off by Trucker Caps with plenty meat manufacturer logo's adorning their fashionable, for 1991,Pedophile Trucker chic.Yeah Tad were good.

There were NO British grunge bands (i'm proud to say),except, apparently some big in America token Brits,called 'Bush'.....never heard them I'm pleased to admit.

Alas, wot the British Isles did have,apart from 50 million 'mad for it' Ravers,were a few traditional rock instrument wielding loonies, who made something like the east coast USA style avant-punk,such as God Is My Co-Pilot,and....er...God Is My Co-Pilot?....can I say it again?...or something Japanesie,such as The Boredoms.

Indeed, off-kilter rhythms,fucked up chords,wayward time signatures,nutzoid singing,silly song titles,... you know, Prog Rock by any other words.Why do you think Godley and Creme get a mention?

Glorious Side:

A1 From Bearsden To Baghdad (Via The Erskine Bridge)
A2 Leaf Sweepers And Sandwich Men
A3 Surface Tension
A4 Crick
A5 Records
A6 Booger Hall
A7 George Bush's Family Oil Business (Sanitized Version)

Heavenly Side:

B1 Bodies Under The Floor
B2 Pwep Dub
B3 Barb
B4 Datsun Panel Beating Co.
B5 The Chairman Of British Gas Graciously Accepts His £150,000 Pay Rise (BPM 58-75)

DOWNLOAD so that others may follow HERE!

Stretchheads – "Five Fingers, Four Thingers, A Thumb, A Facelift, And A New Identity" (Moksha Recordings – SOMALP 2) 1988

Stretchheads first proper Lp,with a few 30 second symphonies repeated in new form from the earlier cassette. Short songs were rather fashionable around 1988,epitomized by Napalm Death's "You Suffer", clocking in at one second...unless some smart alec adds reverb like on the Peel Session version,so that version was timed approaching the ten second barrier.

One must take issue whether a 20 second tune actually qualifies as an actual 'Song'? 

Just playing a high speed riff with a lunatic repeating a phrase a few times, then stopping at a random moment around twenty seconds isn't really enough.I mean, what's stopping you playing the same riff for a whole hour  with the same sentence screamed over and over again (sounds good to me?) ,is that a different song?Or Not a song?

An Avant Garde statement on the disposable culture of the 20th and 21st century it may be,but Songs have to have some kind of structure to be called yer actual 'Song' innit?

Personally I'd like just one half hour tune, played in the classic Stretchheads' Beefheart meets Melt Banana in  Pycho-Ward Z at hyper-sonic speed stylee.....no unwelcome end of track and here's another one stuff;a bit like watching adverts i suppose...or another Avant-Garde Proto-Grind statement on the corporate west....I dunno do I?

Either way, there was certainly nothing like this bunch of nutters in 1988...at least outside of Japan.

The Front cover depicts a classic scene of Spontaneous Human Combustion,leaving just the extremities .......kinds sums up The Stretchheads most adequately indeed.

Tracklist:

1 Fans
2 Long Faced German
3 Headache
4 Asylum Suck
5 Skinrip
6 Yiddish Yoddle
7 Shape & Cleanse
8 Land Of Ming
9 Rex Perplexed
10 Semtex
11 I Should Be So Lucky
12 Confront
13 Sidatorium
14 Spleng
15 Archive Footage Of A Fish
16 Jaw Box
17 Chicken Fish
18 Everythings Going To Break In A Minute
19 Ilness
20 Cancer
21 Shut Up

DOWNLOAD a classic case of spontaneous musical combustion HERE!

Stretchheads – "Three Steps To Heaven" (Self-Released Cassette) 1987

"She's got Myra Hindley Eyyyyyeeeessss".....remember that Hit for Kim Carnes?....or was it Dickie Davies Eyes?.....one of the two anyway.

Dickie Davies, for the minuscule minority who are ignorant,on a need to know basis,that,Dickie Davies presented Itv's 'World of Sport' every saturday on British TV.Oh yeah, and Myra Hindley was the blonde one in The Moors Murderers....Nooooo, Not that Punk Group of the same name which Chrissy Hynde and Steve Strange were in for five minutes in 1977, yer actual child killing Moors Murderers.

Anyway,Those Scottish types ooop north weren't wasting their time watching World Of Sport on saturday lunchtime,oh no...they were down the pub getting pissed (as in 'very drunk' for you yankophones).In the case of the Stretchheads,they were busy getting Pished (scottish for Pissed for you Anglophones),then going on to rehearsals after last orders.I'm sure they intended to sound like The Shrubs,but ended up sounding like an Exhibit A recording of one of The Moors Murderers'(not the group!) victims being tortured,....if they were in their twenties and extremely pished.

This deranged version of Grind-core meets Captain Beefheart, on past their sell-by date amphetamines, would have been the perfect soundtrack for a child killing,but Brady(The Scottish one)and Hindley's artist of choice was The Ray Conniff Singers christmas album (This is pure Evil...the Little Drummer Boy) to accompany the torture of Lesley Anne Downey,which they recorded.....crazy but true.That one was indeed Exhibit A at their trial,and doubtlessly still exists in the vaults at New Scotland Yard.....potentially Throbbing Gristle before Throbbing Gristle?...Whereas, Stretchheads were potentially Grind-Core before Grind-Core, but without any reference to Impending Nuclear destruction or evil multinational corporations leading us all from enslavement to obliteration.....y'know, that kind of thing.

The nearest equivalent has to be something Japanese? Maybe Melt Banana? A duet between Yasuko Onuki(Melt Banana) and P6 (that's the name of the Stretchheads' singer,screamer,vocalist etc???);would be something to behold.....except The Stretchheads split up and Melt Banana plough a lone furrow of truly demented Hardcore still...so no headlines of "Melt Banana Split" can get me off the hook anytime soon!

Any group with a vocalist called P6,high speed prog rock chord sequences,and recorded well into the red Zone has to be good? No?

They should have been rightly revered by the Noise-Core youth of today, but they did the right thing by splitting,citing record company theft as a primary motivation....so they now advocate illegal downloading of their back catalog....so you can make the band happy by starting HERE!...and make me feel like Dennis Moore giving lupins to the Poor again.I love you all.

Tracklist:

1 Sidatorium
2 Chicken Fish
3 Confront
4 Fans
5 Headache
6 The Illness
7 Skinrin
8 Jawbox
9 Cancer

'Steal' from the stretchheads' former record companies HERE!.....but its still sharing as far as i'm concerned.

Boots For Dancing – "The Undisco Kidds (Sessions,Singles,and Demo's 1980-82) " (A Die or DIY? expanded edition) 2022

Bonnie Scotland were not just responsible for such reasons not to exist as Deacon Blue, The Proclaimers,,and Big Country, they virtually invented Indie-pop the night after witnessing Subway Sect on the Clash's White Riot tour....Josef K, Orange Juice,Fire Engines, Boots For Dancing,and......hold on big man,what was that last one?

Yeah, Boots For Dancing, the celtic cousins of Gang Of Four and A Certain Ratio, so accurately described by Rezillo and Dare-era Human Leaguer Jo Callis as "Schrodinger's crazy cats writhing about in a Faraday cage,all charged up"....couldn't have put it better myself. So  scratchy and funky were they that John Peel once threatened to dance upon aural detection. They did release two singles on Bob Last's legendary "Pop:Aural" label after all...all included here.

It's the kind of off kilter post-punk-funk that gets the white man's foot-a-tappin' for sure.A style that would crop up on Top Of The Pops in the form of cute but funky plagiarists Haircut 100 and floppy fringed cringe-meisters Modern Romance,with a polished up version of ACR and Boots For Dancing for the great unwashed and the even the less great unintelligentia who form 90% of the 'Public'. 

Undoubtedly, these groups were also a major influence on Ron Johnson acts such as Twang! and mid-80's post-punk Scot-funksters The MacKenzies,until the Kids found different ways to dance post-chemical enhancement after 1988....i'll leave it to you to imagine what that could have been?

Anyway...All the singles,three John Peel Sessions,and some demo's for a future Lp that never materialized,are on here......groovy baby.

"I Like Dancing but I don't Like Disco's" is the manifesto from the debut single back in 1980.....as for me, I don't Like Dancing and I don't like Disco's.....but if i'm drunk i firmly believe I could to this?.....hmmmm, maybe not?

Tracklist:

1. Boots For Dancing (Pop Aural Single 1980)

2. Parachutes (Pop Aural Single 1980)

3. Guitars & Girl Trouble (Pop Aural Single 1980)

4. (Let's All) Hesitate (Peel Session 17.11.1980)

5. The  Pleasure Chant (Peel Session 17.11.1980)

6. Timeless Tonight (Peel Session (17.11.1980)

7. South Pacific (Peel Session 17.11.1980)

8. Stand (Peel Session 13.07.1981)

9. Shadows Of Stone (Peel Session 13.07.1981) 

10.Wild Jazz Summers (Peel Session 13.07.1981)

11.Get Up (Peel Session 14.04.1982)

12.Salt in the Ocean (Peel Session 14.04.1982)

13.Style in Full Swing (Peel Session 14.04.1982)

14.Bend an Elbow, Lend an Ear (Peel Session 14.04.1982)

15.Just the Ticket  (Barclay Towers Studio October 1981)

16.Money (Is Thin On The Ground) (Barclay Towers Studio October 1981)

17.Wild Jazz Summers (Barclay Towers Studio October 1981)

18.Shadows on Stone (Barclay Towers Studio October 1981)

19.Oh' Bop Sh Bam (Barclay Towers Studio October 1981)

20.Hesitate (The Rain Song 7'' Pop Aural 1980).

21.The Rain Song (The Rain Song 7'' Pop Aural 1980)

DOWNLOAD yer dancin' boots HERE!

Dog Faced Hermans – "Everyday Timebomb" ( Vinyl Drip International – SUK 007) 1989

Sorry to mention John Robb again, but here's another Ron Johnson band wot got away,yet ended up with a release on Vinyl Drip late in the day;but at least Rob Johnson can put another of his products in one of his books,and make sure The Membranes are mentioned as the Trad Rock Traditionalist they wanted to be.

Being guilty of crimes against post-punk fashion,as in his 40 year long erect collars digression,it was a match made in Indie-rock Hell that Johnny,to his credit, could see past the frankly horrible Anarcho-Punk chic of the Dog Faced Hermans.They were, Scottish, after all.

Musically, The Hermans slotted in reasonably well with the pre-madchester Indie scene epitomised by Ron Johnson Records,which was fine ,as long as you did't see 'em. The liberal use of brass instruments give's one unpleasant images of previous and future scotch proto and post-indie evil,such as Pale Fountains and,OUCH!, Belle and Sebastian,that suggests music lessons as a child.....another Anarcho-Punk symptom displayed by the discerning Trustafarian in his angry years.

There's also an egregious,and downright unpleasant suggestion of an inclination towards some ginger dreadlocked Anarcho-Folk,weaponized in the 90's by the Levellers......thumb harps, junkyard percussion, didgeridoos, horrible,horrible,horrible.

Apart from all that...it's not bad.

Tracklist:

A1 New Shoots
A2 Scottish Block
A3 Binding System
A4 John Henry
B1 Beautiful
B2 Frock
B3 Live Action

DOWNLOAD why you should never give your child trumpet lessons HERE!

Death By Milkfloat – "Uninformation" (Vinyl Drip International – SUK006) 1989

 

I'm knackered today, so i'm gonna have to stoop to that much over-used,and low, tactic of mild personal abuse because I just want to be liked really. Like John Robb of Ron Johnson wanna be's,or even Rob Johnson's, The Membranes,and the erect collared individual behind Vinyl Drip Records. Now, John likes, everything basically.You name it, he'll put a positive spin on it,very much like how everyone, including John, now love ABBA and ,of course, they are...Genius's(not). I made the mistake of clicking the 'like' button on Facebook,for his sycophantic music e-publication, 'Louder Than War' I think its called,or was that a Smiths odds and sods compilation for the Morrissey completist . Regularly i would receive articles about how fucking fantastic U2 are really, and how respect is due to a legion of geniuses who we all used to know were the enemy. Yeah, everything's great.....er...no it isn't. He did defend himself once by protesting to me that he was a 'Music Fan'...we all have our guilty secrets I suppose? ...yeah I like Flock Of Seagulls and Thin Lizzy, and one bets John Does too,itching to hit us with the 'Genius' bomb.The difference is that I know that Flock Of Seagulls are certainly NOT genius's...or was that obvious.

Then there are the endless brown-nosed celebrity interviews on YouTube that block up the pop u-bend,The John Robb interview,and the endless appearances on the Lorraine Show on morning TV when ever a pop star dies.....yeah,Ok....i'm jealous.....I've always wanted to meet Lorraine Kelly.

Gone are the days when the crowd at The Vortex club cheered when Danny Baker announced the Death of Elvis.

Normally I would suggest that one should not trust any male who wears his shirt collars upright,like Eric Cantona,although Eric did Kung-Fu kick a Crystal Palace supporter once,maybe aided in flight by those turned up Collars?...but generally it's not a good look,especially for a 60 year old.

The Membranes were/are pretty rubbish,never quite achieving cult status,despite busting a bloodvessel to be like their non-Trad Rock peers,such as Bogshed.....who also appears on Vinyl Drip,when they should have been on Ron Johnson,like Milkfloat should have been too.

One last gripe before i down my my Red Bull has to be thee most ill-advised pattern of Record Label  behavior,or even career self-destruction on record has to be Changing your band name mid race.Whosoever suggested that Death By Milkfloat should contract their moniker to just the incomprehensible two syllables of Milkfloat should be forced to read everything that John Robb has ever written about pop'n'roll,.... without remission.
Tracklist:

A1 Take Advice
A2 50 Second Sculpture
A3 Vagrancy
B1 Breakbone
B2 Too Much Feel

DOWNLOAD to be uniformed HERE!

Death By Milkfloat – "Sense And Nonsense" (Di Di Music – DI DI 120) 1987

Another group who should have been but never was,as in wasn't,on Ron Johnson Records, would be Death By Milkfloat. An amphetamine fueled Mackenzies type mental indie funk rush that couldn't be criticised for its low energy levels.

They also field another candidate for the fastest guitarist in the west,competing with the guitar wielders from the Wedding Present and The Nightingales;at a time when we all thought it had to be that bloke from Napalm Death,or other daft Grindcore nonsense from some silly sausage in Solihull.....drop the 'Soli' part and you'd be close,as Death By Milkfloat came from the lost city of Kingston Upon Hull.It rises from the sea smog of the Humber Estuary like a Brigadoon of functional architecture appearings like a grey ghost as one approaches across the Humber Bridge. 

It is said that once you go to Hull you can never leave,that's it, It's all over;due to the confusion spread by the Ministry of Defense Listening and early warning station.....Fun Fact: Hull is the nearest point in the UK to Russia.

Right now there are dozens of grey men and women hacking Russian soldier's phones for evidence of Genocide, and infiltrating slavic computer systems with false information...and they're doing it in Hull.

This would explain the manic high speed choppy style of probably, Hull's bestest group....not counting Fat Boy Slim of course,and certainly not counting Coum Transmissions aka ...Throbbing Gristle;especially now every trendy worth his spots think TG are the Dopest group to namedrop to his bearded chums in the nominate your own price coffee bar in the bohemian quarter.

Tracklist:

A1 What
A2 (What's Your Name) Roger Murray
B1 Man With A Dog
B2 Never The Same
B3 Fishlake

DOWNLOAD by milkfloat HERE!

The Great Leap Forward – "Controlling The Edges Of Tone" (Ron Johnson Records – ZRON 20) 1987

It all started to go WRONG with Ron Johnson Records, previously Thee perfect record Label, when bIG fLAME broke up,leaving us with Singer and Bassist Alan Brown's (a pop star's name if ever there wasn't one?) new poppier vehicle "The Great Leap Forward".

Firstly the band name rang alarm bells warning of trendy left wing alignment, to keep open ambitions to join the second coming of any potential "Red Wedge" tour with such like-minded righteous soap boxers as ex-tory Paul Weller's Style-less council, and the brain cell crushing awfulness that was,and sadly still is...Billy Bragg.....who incidentally had a song which went by the same name as Alan's new pinko pop chartbound flops.

As far as i was concerned,having eagerly purchased the debut EP "Controlling The Edges Of Sound", this was more the Great Leap Backwards from the cubist pop perfection of bIG fLAME. 

Right-on lefty lyrics aside,the music is a kind of B-movie version of Haircut 100's bastard child with Josef K.....which sounds quite promising,does it not?.....but it didn't even achieve that.Quite disappointed I was.

Listening to it again,removed from such idealistic times....its not bad....it really does sound like Haircut 100 grafted on to everyone's favourite Kafka cloned Edinburgher's.

Amusingly dated references to the E.E.C.(if only it stayed like that instead of the unwieldy soopah state of today's EU?) and the Common agricultural policy (C.A.P.),which gave us Wine lakes,Butter mountains, and Grain surplus's bigger than the Sahara desert.What would we all give to have that kind of resource at hand today with this idiotic war going on?

Yep...let's Jive While We're Still Alive.....i'm currently tapping my foot to this,so there's still hope.

Tracklist:

Side Head:
A1 Hope's Not Enough, Son - Ask Your Parents 3:17
A2 If The C.A.P's Flat, Than Waive It 3:58

Side Arrow:
B1 Let's Jive While We're Still Alive 2:42
B2 My Grandfather's Cluck 4:31

DOWNLOAD while you're still alive HERE!

We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It – "The BBC Sessions 1986/1987" (Cherry Red – CDMRED 213) 2002

Without fail,the best moments in any bands history are the first things they do.

As a subscriber to the "First Thought Best Thought school of hard knocks",this quaint attempt at Folk-Art philosophy  should be carved on the stone tablets which emerged when the rock'n'roll Moses rose from the swamps with the Eleven Commandments of Rock clasped under his sweaty armpits.

Another rule scratched clumsily on these holy tablets is don't sign contracts with any entertainment industry conglomerate.

Sadly, "Fuzzbox"...as they came to be known after they signed a contract with an entertainment industry conglomerate..., didn't follow these simple rules,and rapidly became rubbish. Sadly not the first time this was to happen, mainly due to the vulgar pursuit of the mighty Dollah!.

Happily these girls were avid exponents of the "First Thought Best Thought"(or even better No thought No Thought!) process that pervades all great art,and were captured in their natural state,once again, by the BBC.As were The Slits a decade earlier. Nascent Fuzzbox were saved for posterity by the public service corporation of Great Britain,while Fuzzbox were still a new born phenomenon, and still called "We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It".

I did type previously that all 21st century girl groups are shit in comparison.One was just paraphrasing/plagiarising a fellow blogger,honest guvn'r (Creepscanner)....strictly for shock effect mind.

The rather wonderful Wet Leg seem to be reviving the lost tradition of Girl groups who just wanna have a jolly good larf,and what are you gonna do about it? Hopefully they will curb the tide of dull post-hiphop nonsense that make up the majority of nominees for the joyless Mercury Music Prize 2022.You know what I mean,the Rap Singers.You've seen 'em on the Top Of The Pops..they used to go on there,you've seen 'em.The Rap singers.Y'know,The Rappers,Rap singers.Round the back of the multistory,...The Rap Singers.......

The tracks in these BBC sessions are frozen moments in time when these 2 minute symphonies were in their raw primal state,like Lionesses prowling the monochrome Savannah lands of Birmingham(UK).....dyed Pink of course.

Peel Session-Tracks 1 to 4: ℗ 1986 BBC. First transmitted 10/3/86
Janice Long Session-Tracks 5 to 9: ℗ 1986 BBC. First transmitted 10/4/86
Peel Session-Tracks 10 to 14: ℗ 1986 BBC. First transmitted 11/8/86
Janice Long Session-Tracks 15 to 18: ℗ 1987 BBC. First transmitted 12/1/87

Tracklist:

1 Aaarrrrggghhh!!! 2:23
2 Fever 2:25
3 Rules & Regulations 2:51
4 Justine 2:09
5 Aaarrrrggghhh!!! 2:25
6 Love Is The Slug 2:16
7 Hollow Girl 3:18
8 Console Me 1:33
9 Spirit In The Sky 3:03
10 You Got Me 3:43
11 Preconceptions 2:32
12 Jackie 2:35
13 She 4:02
14 Bohemian Rhapsody 5:18
15 Wait & See 2:11
16 Self 2:37
17 What's The Point 2:24
18 High Hopes 1:04

DOWNLOAD from the rich savannah lands of eighties pop HERE!

We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use it - "Bostin' Steve Austin" (Vindaloo Records – FBOX 1) 1986

Also on Robert Lloyd of The Nightingales fame's Vindaloo Records,and touring mates of Ted Chippington, were the snappily named 'We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use it' from the home of heavy metal, Birmingham England....... 

As the much missed Jerry Orbach once said....(Who?)...

"Maybe this isn't your cuppa, but I'll cop to my fetish for 80's ladies. Why did they just seem so much more fun? When did girls just become so dour? Just look at the photo and tell me when you see girls like this anymore. You don't. Then again, if you read this blog it's unlikely that you see any girls aside from your mom and porn. At the risk of sounding like a misogynist, there's tons of girl bands out there now that really wish they could be this good, but, unfortunately they are shit. To this day, I wonder what ever became of these ladies. It's my debilitating laziness that prevents me from typing the band into google and actually find out. Some things are better kept as memories."

Nowadays the only 80's ladies I come across (Phnaar Phanaar) are ladies IN their 80's rather than ladies FROM thee 80's....oh by the way, the guitary-one with the star-shaped shades died about a decade ago.....cancer.

Of course, it all went tits up when Closet Gaylord Geffen got wind of it....prized them from Vindaloo,and shortened their name to just..."Fuzzbox",and insisted on hit singles and the like.

Why are major record labels such eternally blocked toilets of pure shite? They observe something the public like then change it,and sell a crapper version of it back to them.

Tracklist:

A1 Love Is The Slug 3:06
A2 Wait And See 2:15
A3 Jackie 2:39
A4 Spirit In The Sky 3:05
A5 X X Sex 1:59
A6 Alive 2:17
B1 What's The Point 2:27
B2 You Got Me 3:35
B3 Hollow Girl 3:09
B4 Console Me 1:27
B5 Rules And Regulations 2:48
B6 Preconceptions 2:32

DOWNLOAD it HERE and stuff!

Ted Chippington – "Walking Down The Road (A History Of Ted Chippington)" (Big Print – WELLx3) 2007

"I was walking down the road the other day, mate of mine pulled up, in his car,and he said, "I'm in a dilemma mate" and I said, 'Aye, good motors, Dilemmas. I was thinking of buying one myself. A red one perhaps?"

A box set...you heard... A BOX SET!?.. of the Anti-Comedian's Anti-Comedian,Ted Chippington. Whose act consisted of but one joke,which invariably began with "I was walking down the Road...", a wanton act of minimalism intended to wind up the less savvy members of the audience, which for the most part were there mainly for whatever indie band he was usually supporting.He only had one joke, but a lot of the crowd never got it.Even realising that he was being deliberately Bad missed the point.The 'joke' was subtle in it's unsubtlety ,dare I say,even sophisticated?

Many were so offended by his inability to locate their funny bones that they threatened to break Chippington's. But for the cognoscenti who took him to their heart, that was precisely Chippington's appeal.
Word spread. The cult grew. Yet as fame, fortune and the big time beckoned, Chippington retreated from the stage.Especially after his notorious appearance on daytime TV,on the execrably awful Pebble Mill at One;which stands as a living example of why alternative culture should never be in the same room as the mainstream (I too flirted with an invitation to appear on Pebble Mill with my 'crazy' sculptures.....we turned it down...would have been on with Zola Budd,the bare footed athlete Lol!). He had, in his own words, become "too popular". Choosing, instead, to opt out;after the Vindaloo Records tour of the USA,he stayed and found work driving trucks along America's Pacific Highway, before returning to a life of peaceful, uneventful obscurity in the West Country.

Nowadays, he's back,and currently touring the UK as support for The Nightingales again!?

"I was walking down the road the other day, when this chap said to me.An Hippie chap like: "D'you want some LSD man?" I said: "No thanks mate, we've gone decimalised now. Pounds, shillings, pence - no use to me any more."

Tracklist:

Good Evening To All Mankind
1-1 Improvisation 0:06
1-2 Good Evening To All Mankind 18:21
1-3 Monthly Return To Cornwall 53:42

The Human Being Years
2-1 Salisbury 3:10
2-2 Southampton 12:30
2-3 London 5:43
2-4 Preston 6:33
2-5 Stonehenge 7:21
2-6 Non Stop Party Hits Of The 50's 60's & 70's Side 1 6:41
2-7 Non Stop Party Hits Of The 50's 60's & 70's Side 2 7:12
2-8 Liverpool 11:38

The Big Time
3-1 Man In A Suitcase Side 1 21:38
3-2 Man In A Suitcase Side 2 24:41
3-3 Times Gone By 3:59
3-4 Drivin' Down The Road 1:58
3-5 Remember It Well 12:34
3-6 Weirdness 5:58
The Real Truth About Trucking

4-1 Call Me Rockin' 1:28
4-2 The Real Truth About Trucking Sides 1 & 2 40:04
4-3 The Wanderer 2:45
4-4 The Xmas Hit/Tesco 19:50
4-5 Pull Up 5:14

I Was walking DOWN the LOAD HERE!

John Shuttleworth – "The Dolby Decades" (Chic Ken – CHIC KENCD017) 2008

More from the maestro of the Yahama organ including "I Can't Go back To Savoury Now";if that isn't a good enough incentive to get you to download this recording you are probably dead.

However, "I Don't Want To Dance (But You've Got To" is the only tune ever to face up to the White Male'a dilemma of whether to dance and look like the prat you are,or show resolve and decline the opportunity to indulge in this ridiculous pastime,passing itself off as an expression of Joy(?)....what the fuck is there to dance about anyway?...This track has the compliment of having a guest vocal spot by Richard Whitely, of lame afternoon quiz shoe "Countdown" fame, before he died.....he had "One Foot In The Gravy" i guess?...of course referring to John's meditation on the spectre of mortality which goes by the same name on track 16.

Coronation Street gets namechecked again,through "Betty Turpin" who stood behind the bar of the Rovers Return soap opera pub for 42 years,never(well occasionally a few lines) having more than a few words ,such as "yes luvvie"to say,ever!

Could go through it track by track,listing the producers, what keyboard John Played,studio equipment,Beatles influences and shite like that,as if i was writing for Mojo Magazine,but fuck that!

Its fucking good,that's all you lot need to now.....isn't that right Betty?....."Yes Luvvie."

Tracklist:

1 Life Is Like A Salad Bar
2 Serial Cereal Eater
3 Three Men In A Van
4 Fish And Chips
5 Unaccompanied Lady
6 Disaffected Youth
7 God's Waiting Room
8 God Bless The Fleece
9 Dandelion And Burdock
10 I Can't Go Back To Savoury Now
11 I Don't Want To Dance (But You've Got To!)
Featuring – Richard Whiteley
12 Blatherwyke
13 Betty Turpin
14 Two Margarines
15 She Lives In Hope
16 One Foot In The Gravy
17 Karen's Tangerine
18 Mutiny Over The Bounty
19 When Suburbia Wakes
20 Scenes From South Yorkshire

DOWNLOAD a decade spanning collection of dolby encoded wonders HERE!

John Shuttleworth – "The Yamaha Years" (Chic Ken – Chic Ken CD001) 1997

 Nooooo!...John Shuttleworth ,like the Tooth Beaver, is not real. He is the comedic creation of the artist formerly known as Jilted John,also known as Graham Fellows,the actor who played Gail Tilsley's teenage lover in Coronation street......her husband, Brian,played by one of the finest actors that ever haunted the cathode ray tube(i Jest of Course) Chris Quentin, would have said something like "I'll Flamin' Kill Him!" when he inevitably found out. Poor Brian got knifed in 1989,he was stabbed at 8pm in the Monday episode,but the ambulance didn't turn up till 7.30 Wednesday evening for the next installment......I'm sure John Shuttleworth, second wife Mary,and kids, Darren and Karen, would have been watching those fateful nights in UK Soap Opera history.

Coronation Street is built on foundations of northern camp humour,and in contrast to its more serious soap rival, was famed for having actors who wished they were comedians,whereas East Enders,the London one, had Comedians who wished they were actors.

In the case of John Shuttleworth, he was very much a case of an Actor who became a comedian,via music,and his most enduring character still is the Redundant Steelworker from Sheffield who reinvented himself as a singer songwriter,and his fabulous Yamaha keyboard.

His tunes are hilarious of course,and here we have a collection of his finest efforts to date,and Yes....it does include "Pigeons In Flight.

Tracklist:

1 My Wife Died In 1970
2 Modern Man
3 Have You Seen My Wife?
4 You're Like Manchester
5 Eggs And Gammon
6 Man Who Lives On The M62
7 Up And Down Like A Bride's Nightie
8 The Christmas Orphan
9 Y Reg
10 500 Bus Stops
11 Save The Whale
12 The Bee And The Wasp
13 Can You Ken Ken?
14 Shopkeepers In The North
15 Mary Had A Little Lamb
16 How To Be Happy In A Sad Sad World
17 From A Father To A Son (The Burial Song)
18 What's A Shuttleworth?
19 Do The Stars Remember?
20 Pigeons In Flight

DOWNLOAD a fine argument for redundancy HERE!

Jilted John – "True Love Stories... Plus" (Castle Music – ESM CD 771) 1978

I remember sending me mum downtown to the record shop to get "Jilted John" by Jilted John on Rabid back in '78......but,it had SOLD OUT?!

This tchoon's time in the limelight coincided with the only visit logged to date of my Australian relatives from the suburbs of Sydney.......I'm now thinking of that fine song by The Fall, "Australians in Europe.....Peel Session version", that reignited my enthusiasm for MES and said group. These were absolutely NOT fans of The Saints,or any of those fine Oz Punk groups.Cousin Carl still wore the most horrible flared jeans,and liked stuff such as Fleetwood Mac and The Beatles(!?)So he was rather shocked at what was happening in the the whole of the UK, music wise. He accompanied me to the Record Shop where i bought that Raw Records Compilation "(Oh No)...it's More From Raw", which included such classic Punk Rock tchoons, as The beyond great Users' "Sick Of You", faux cockney's The killjoys, Some Chickens' manson inspired "Blood On The Wall",Hammersmith Gorillas etc.....not a bad track as far as i was concerned,but Carl was Horrified;later confiding in my mother that he felt Old and past it....he was 17.This of course only encouraged me to play it constantly,and at some stage i slipped Jilted John,on EMI, onto my turntable.This got an enthusiastic response from the female end of our antipodean relations.Cousin Clare was my age and secured herself a copy to take back to Wolongong to show off her new Punk single to her mates.

Describing this novelty single as "Punk" was pushing it a bit,but it had the sneery vocals,one chord guitar work,the group,....or the Rabid Records staff... looked a bit scruffy, but it did have its DIY roots,so i couldn't discourage the idea.This could have been by Johnny Rotten if he had a more privileged upbringing lived in Manchester and was nice.

I never bought, or even know of a Jilted John album until it got re-released in 1999.It's largely awful,and provided further evidence that this Graham Fellows project should have lasted for one single only;but, it does sound like a potential Lost-Teenage dream nostalgia musical that never was.....so maybe in the future?

Tracklist:

1 Jilted John– Going Steady 3:52
2 Jilted John– Baz's Party 4:30
3 Jilted John– I Know I'll Never 1:32
4 Jilted John– I Was A Pre-Pubescent 2:57
5 Jilted John– Fancy Mice 5:10
6 Jilted John– Jilted John (LP Version) 3:02
7 Jilted John– The Birthday Kiss 3:53
8 Jilted John– The Paperboy Song 4:17
9 Jilted John– True Love 3:16
10 Jilted John– In The Bus Shelter 1:36
11 Jilted John– Karen's Letter 1:49
12 Jilted John– Shirley 4:17
13 Jilted John– Goodbye, Karen 2:37
14 Jilted John– Jilted John (Single Version) 2:58
15 Gordon The Moron– Fit For Nothing 3:08
16 Gordon The Moron– Sold On You 4:00

DOWNLOAD HERE! you sad excuse for a post-pubescent you!

Jilted John – "Jilted Jam Demos Rehearsals & Gigs 1977 - 2008" (Boss Tuneage – BTRCRS090) 2016

Another from the same northern monkey school of straddling that grey area between acting, comedy and music, would have to be,one Graham Fellows aka, Jilted John and John Shuttleworth. As was so kindly mentioned by someone in the comments section,he appeared on manchesters' Rabid records, along with stablemates Slaughter and the Dogs, John Cooper Clark, Chris Seivey (Frank Sidebottom),Ed Banger and the Nosebleeds;featuring none other than Vinni Riley of Durutti Column fame,and briefly Jilted John....before EMI snaffled him up.

Yes, "Jilted John" by Jilted John, was a top ten smash in summer 1978.Back in the days when You could say things like Slag,Bitch and Puff on television and not face being cancelled. As this clip of John's third appearance on Top Of The Pops demonstrates, beginning with Jimmy Saville cavorting alongside three possible victims while introducing John on live vocals.Sadly it was destined to become yet another novelty one hit wonder......but there was more....an album and a slew of flop singles.Not to mention demo's and even a couple of gigs!?

Essentially, Graham was more on the Actor who does music rather than the musician who does acting,which never works out great, does it David Bowie ? Actors who do music did have rather more sucess than the aforementioned disasters...namely Punishment Of Luxury, Shoes For Industry,  Albertos y los trios Paranoias and...erm....Jilted John.

I rather think the Jilted John Project would have been better left as just a novelty hit, but of course, when a major label is involved, they squeeze the juice out of anything they get their stupid hands on.Which reminds me of the time when the top EMI record executive met new signings Pink Floyd, and asked which one was 'pink'.

Jilted John would have been a musical in the west end if it was made now....it still could I guess,it's all there,the story sung in half-rhyme,the nostalgic characters,the teenage  memories,the hit, all that's needed is some naff choreography by Wayne Sleep and a few million quid from Andrew Lloyd-Webber's bulging coffers, and an unsanctioned Oligarch.The Public would love it.

John/Graham had another brush with minor fame,this time as an actor,playing Gail Tilsley's inappropriate young lover in Coronation Street.....before reinventing himself as retired Steelworker John Shuttleworth,who spent his redundancy on a secondhand Yamaha keyboard in a quest for fame as a singer songwriter. His greatest hit I would suggest, has to be "Pigeons In Flight" (more on the way....recorded in Dolby.

Tracklist:

1 Jilted John (Live At Erics, Liverpool, May 12th 1978) 3:28
2 Unknown Interview Clip 1 0:50
3 Jilted John (Original Demo, December 1977) 3:20
4 Going Steady (Live At Erics, Liverpool, May 12th 1978) 3:36
5 Unknown Interview Clip 2 1:00
6 Jilted John (What's On, Granada TV, April 1978) 2:43
7 Going Steady (Live At Big Chill, August 2008) 4:39
8 Baz's Party (Band Rehearsal, September 1978) 5:03
9 Radio Clip 1 (BBC Radio 1, November 1978) 1:17
10 Birthday Kiss (Live At Erics, Liverpool, May 12th 1978) 4:26
11 Shirley (Band Rehearsal, September 1978) 3:53
12 Unknown Interview Clip 3 0:33
13 My Love's Just Begun (Unreleased Recording, 1979) 3:24
14 Baz's Party (Original Demo, 6th August 1978) 6:17
15 Radio Clip 2 (BBC Radio Manchester, November 1978) 1:39
16 Birthday Kiss (Live At Big Chill, August 2008) 4:50
17 Paperboy Song (Original Demo, July 1978) 4:09
18 Radio Clip 3 (BBC Radio Manchester, November 1978) 0:55
19 Keira Knightly (Live At Big Chill, August 2008) 2:39
20 Stoodup Stephen (Original Demo, January 1978) 6:08
21 Debbie, Debbie (Live At Erics, Liverpool, May 12th 1978) 2:42
22 Trendy Wendy (Original Demo, April 1978) 4:15
23 Jilted John (Live At Big Chill, August 2008) 5:10
24 Sharon's Song (Original Demo, Incomplete, Early 1978) 1:14

DOWNLOAD HERE! you Slaaaaaags!

Frank Sidebottom – "13:9:88" (In Tape – IT SIXTY) 1988

 

There ain't many demented children's entertainers who do cover versions of The Fall and Captain Beefheart,in fact you can count them on one extended middle finger.

Of course Frank Sidebottom is that entertainer;just one in a lengthy line of 'hip' northern English and Scottish muscians (He's Chris Sievey of the Freshies to repeat myself) who also moonlighted more successfully as comedians.

The art of marrying comedic song and dance with music is largely not to be recommended, but up north one has to have a sense of humour,especially if you live in somewhere like Rochdale in the 1980's. Even Mark E. Smith could have easily been a comedian;i had visions of him becoming the new Les Dawson later in life,but unfortunately he never made it too far past 60.

And of course let's not forget this is where Mrs Merton, aka Mrs Peter Hook of Joy Division (Caroline Aherne) got her big break.Going on to do the Award Winning "Mrs Merton Show",and The Award winning "Royal Family".....before succumbing to the rather less funny reality of cancer.

Nearly all of the above are dead!?

Bloody 'ell, they're dropping like bloody fly's!?

Tracklist:

A1 On The Train
A2 Blackpool Fool
A3 Tickets Please
A4 To The Beach
A5 Hit The North
A6 Hit The Arcades
A7 Hit Dick Turpin
A8 Frank Checks Into Auntie Edie's
A9 Mrs. Taylor
A10 Room With A View?
A11 Phone Conversation
A12 Off To The Funfair
A13 Mirror Man/Mirror Puppet
A14 Gimme Dat Harp, Little Frank
A15 Frank Hires A Boat
B1 Frank's Luxury Bachelor Penthouse Pad
B2 Debbie Greenwood
B3 Mrs. Merton
B4 Late Night Problems
B5 Me Great Big Floor Scrapbook
B6 Golden Mile
B7 Breakfast At Edie's
B8 Car And Punchline Trouble
B9 Go Away
B10 M.A.T.B.W.M.T.D.B. (Acts 1 & 2)
B11 Back At Edie's
B12 Gipsy Rose Sidebottom
B13 Very Very Big Special Case

DOWNLOAD HERE! you ungrateful bunch of front-bottoms you!