Exhibit A, your honor, is the groups pièce de résistance, the "Distance EP" from 1980; where our teenage chums go synth pop, like an even wimpier Depeche Mode.
The stand out track is the wobbly minimal synth Indie crossover classic, "Platform 6", which gives a strong indication as to the direction Matthew Matrices /Vosburgh would take next.....ie Solid Space.
The title track is a kind of melodic Indie space pop, and it all ends with a charming peon to the uses and benefits of 'Bollards'; I've always thought Bollards have had rough press over the years.
An absolute classic, flowing with charm and innocence from the cusp of adulthood.....with cheapo synthesisers.
Although, where a few 15-16 year olds got the money to buy a couple of synths and release a vinyl record from I have no idea?....a paper round?..... selling drugs?.....or bourgeois parents(i'm picking this one)?
I'm the same age as these boys and the best my teenage band could muster, until we got on the dole, was a few plastic buckets for drums, a knackered acoustic guitar with two strings, and a mono cassette deck.
It was the same with the 'punk' groups, they were all supposed to be skint, but had brand name electric guitars, drum kits, amplifiers, expensive biker jackets, and the odd designer t-shirt. Us real people still wore high waisted flares, flowery shirts and v-neck jumpers.....with NO instruments.As it said in 'Sniffin' Glue'....Here's three chords, now go and form a Band. Which we all promptly did, but with no instruments,and consequently zero chords. This is a primary reason for the appearance of lots of Industrial acts, where having no instruments was a positive advantage.
Tracklist:
A Distance
B1 Platform 6
B2 Bollards
Exhibit 'A' formed in late 1978 when four 14-year-olds discovered a shared interest in John Peel's late night radio shows — whilst avoiding sporting activities together during school breaks. They produced three issues of a fanzine, Wombat Weekly, and recorded their first EP, No Elephants this Side of Watford Gap at a central London youth club in 1979. At age 15 and 16 they were one of the youngest bands to release their own record independently. Guitarist and indie idealist Paul Platypus also played with the excellent Reflections (with Mark Perry and Nag from the Door & the Window), Doof with Phillip Johnson, and Twelve Cubic Feet (joined by former Exhibits drummer Andrew Lunchbox-good stagename- and bassist Matthew Matrices among others), and founded Namedrop Records. Matthew went on to release one of thee classic DIY tapes ever with Solid Space's "Space Museum" (1982).In fact everything the members of Exhibit A had to do with was rather marvelous indeed.
This lot deserve their place in the pantheon of real boy(and girl, as in Honey Bane*) Bands, alongside The Prats, The Fatal Microbes*, and half of Eater.
But above that they were one of the earliest indicators of what would become the 'Indie' template, and the de-rocking of Pop music; before fey shoegazing and the inordinately floppy fringe became more important than the attitude.Then, even worse, before major labels started to set up their own 'Fake Indie' labels and shoved Jesus and Mary Chain clones down our throats into the proper charts,and eventually became rebranded as 'Brit Pop'?????(ugh!).The Subway Sect and the TV Personalities would have turned in their graves....although they both still exist as Zombie Indie cash-in acts to this very day!?
Tracklist:
A1 In The Night 2:55
A2 Fame And Fortune 2:08
B1 Digital Age 1:38
B2 Maniac Garden 4:36
Another classic Street Level compilation of UK DIY ,with shades of Proto-Indie, is "The Thing From The Crypt". A shared album for acts on Dead Hedgehog and Nick Blinko's (of Rudimentary Peni!?) Outer Himalayan Records.
No Anarcho Punk on here, thank fuck,despite Blinko's connection,- he always sounded a step apart from that washed out black clad clique-; but it has much to point towards the vague watershed between UK DIY and the early 'Indie' sound.
There's some quaintly amateurish Goth by S-Haters, but I don't mind a bit of that, as long as its as badly played as these two tracks.
And we have 'Sad Lovers and Giants', who are just too conventionally good in a New Wave sense, and amazingly still exist today!!?
The stand out band are obviously teenage tearaways 'Exhibit A', featuring future' Twelve Cubic Feet'-ers and 'Solid Space' members.
Altogether an album full of that uncertain amateurish charm we all love in this digitally padded cell; yet is soooo absent from today's boringly 'clued up' society.
'They', whatever 'they' may mean(?), are so clued up they are in fact very,very, Clueless.
Tracklist:
A1 –Exhibit A - Rain
A2 –Sad Lovers & Giants - Take Me Inside
A3 –Mex - Evil Creatures
A4 –Gambit Of Shame - Dancing With The Turks
A5 –Flying Beechcraft - Bugger Off
A6 –Image In Ruin - Tank
A7 –Soft Drinks - Squash
A8 –S-Haters - Necromancer
B1 –Soft Drinks - Pepsi Cola
B2 –Flying Beechcraft - Frog Girl
B3 –Image In Ruin - Bottle
B4 –S-Haters - Canal
B5 –Exhibit A - Echoes
B6 –Sad Lovers & Giants - Clint
B7 –Mex - Functioning Fripp Girls
B8 –Gambit Of Shame - She Lawn
I will soften the sonic ambiance further with a slew of minimal electronica.
First up is this quaintly dated synth and indie guitar classic by Solid
Space (including former Exhibit A and Twelve Cubic Feet members), on the infamous In-Phaze Records; home of among others, Portion Control.
Its sort of a hybrid of The Cure, Pet Shop Boys, and the Instant Automatons. A naive sounding electro-pop classic.
In its way this is as disturbing as the Mathausen Orchestra, especially the Neil Tennant impression vocals; frightening.
DOWNLOAD this space museum HERE!
