The Last Chant "Run Of The Dove" (Chicken Jazz Records, 1981)

Here's yet another of those records that I know absolutely nothing about. I'm sure that I bought this single (in Record & Tape Exchange, obv.) because it was on Chicken Jazz, who'd released the Waterboys single "A Girl Called Johnny". (though this single came first). I remember being somewhat disappointed with the single when I first got it, but when the middle of the 80's rolled round, the fact that it was basically an EXACT copy of the Velvet Underground meant it scored some major points and stayed in my collection. It's a piece of dark, brooding psychedelia: it broods and builds, swells and surges: it's a quite extraordinarily confident record, which seems all the more confusing when nothing further was heard from its protagonists. Sometimes, great bands have enough power and drive to get that one great single out: then no more. It's the Mayfly principle at work. Live fast, die young, and leave a wonderful 7" piece of vinyl that people will blog about for years to come.

And yes, that's my digital camera that's made the sleeve look so bad. I apologise. One of these days, I promise I'll get a scanner. As ever, if anyone out there has any more info on the band, let me know.

The Last Chant "Run Of The Dove" (mp3)

Phut Phut Splodgenik "86, The Year Of The Bean" (Completely Different Records 1986)

The main criteria for bunging stuff up on this little blog has to be: 1) Is it unavailable on CD? 2) Is it suitably difficult to find, therefore people might be interested in hearing it? As long as tunes fulfill those two criteria, they're in. This tune scores particularly heavily on point 2). Let me explain......

1986 finds me working in Our Price records, more often than not at its two branches in Watford. I was a cocky little kid, and not above telling the shop managers which records they should and shouldn't be ordering from the reps. The reps were the mobile salesmen from various record labels, who would pass by our shops on a weekly basis, park their Granada estates outside and stagger in with an armful of promotional stock. They would then attempt to coerce you into ordering as many copies as possible of their priority acts for that week. Often, the deal would be sweetened with the rep passing over FOC (free of charge) stock, so the shop would make a clear profit, or else we'd end up with some Belouis Some slipmats, or a Danny Wilson promotional T-shirt (oh, the glamour.) On this visit, the rep for Pinnacle had, amongst a pile of other stuff, this little beauty. It's Max Splodge (surely you guessed that?) of Splodgenessabounds "fame", in one of his many attempts to repeat the success of "Two Pints Of Lager...." This time, the target of his attention was Sigue Sigue Sputnik. "The Year Of The Bean" is a barely-disguised pastiche of "Love Missile F-111", with a lyric attempting to join the Sputnik vision of cold, robotic modernity to the 100th birthday of the Baked Bean. And it's therefore got LOADS of fart noises on it. These, it has to be said, are funny the first time you hear them, but lose their, ahem, sparkle soon afterwards. Perhaps the central failing of the record is that it seeks to try and make SSS funny, when in truth, they were doing a pretty good job of it themselves, albeit unintentionally.

So far(t), so good. The rep played the single in the shop, the manager thought it was daft, so did I; but I reckoned it would sell. So, I got the rep to put us down for 3 copies, and asked if we could get one now, and put it out in the racks. The rep went out to his Granada, coming back with a disconsolate look on his face. "Sorry lads, that's the only copy they gave me. You can buy it now, if you're desperate" Well, we weren't desperate, but we bought it anyway (it was always good to look after the reps, you'd get paid back somehow, in the future). As it turned out, I was wrong about the single: no-one wanted to buy it. Except me. Yes, over the course of the next few weeks, I became rather attached to it's juvenile charms, and persuaded the manager to let me have it as a staff purchase. We put it's number down on our order sheet, next to the three copies that we still hadn't received.

And they never turned up. I can remember phoning in the Pinnacle order over the next few months, spouting a long list of catalogue numbers down the phone "Rough Trade RT 121 for 6, Demon 56 for 10......" and every time I got to this records catalogue number "....and Mad 03 for three copies..." the computer would just emit a squawk and the girl on the order desk would say "I'm sorry, that's no longer on our lists" It had vanished. But now, it seems that it never even made it as far as the record buying public anyway: according to this it seems to have been the victim of a record company that went into liquidation, and hardly any copies ever saw the light of day. Rumour has it that Max Splodge himself doesn't even own a copy. If that's all true, I'm guessing that the copies that were given to reps were the only ones to reach the public, if indeed they ever did. If the record had a thousand-copy print run (fairly standard) there would probably have been around 50 copies which were given to the reps to drum up interest. My copy is one of those. Whatever, it's probably one of the rarest records I've got, as well as being one of the silliest. If anyone else out there knows anything more about this particular slice of buffoonery, you know where I am.

Max Splodge is still very much with us, his myspace is here. There's a great Splodgenessabounds reissue, which you can get here containing pretty much all you'll ever need (including the 40 seconds of GENIUS which is "Yarmouth 5-0")

So, to finish, enjoy, but be warned: may contain fart noises.

Phut Phut Splodgenik "86, The Year Of The Bean" (mp3)

The Bicycle Thieves "Ghost Dance"/"Louise" (Clear Spot Records, 1986)

I just can't resist a request, so for Nick (see the comments on the Faith Global post), here's a forgotten gem from 1986. I got this single from a bloke I knew called Roger, who'd been putting on some gigs at Queen Mary college in Mile End in London. I'm not really sure why I was up there paying him a visit, but i found myself in the promoters office, with it's requisite detritus of singles, posters, fanzines, flyers, gaffa tape and overflowing ashtrays. Roger sat me down, and while we were chatting, said "Hang on, have a listen to this, it's by a band I'm sort of looking after at the moment" He played me "Louise" and I absolutely loved it. So much so that I begged him to let me have a copy. "Sure" he said, rooting around his desk for a spare. "Actually, that's the only copy I've got at the moment, you can have it if you like" So, it was secondhand when I got it, and it's obviously been played a little *too* much, but it's been one of my most cherished records from that day to this. It's a driving, heartfelt slice of pop melancholia, with a melody The icicle works would have killed for, and just the right amount of chiming Rickenbacker verve and swagger. It's actually the B-side to this single, but take it from me, it's easily better than the other side.

And what of The Bicycle Thieves? Well- and I'm sure you won't be surprised, nothing.I've got a 12" by the band which came out on Waterfront records a few years later, and it's not a patch on this. There's no record of them anywhere on the Internet. If anyone out there knows anything about them, I'd dearly love to know.

The Bicycle Thieves "Louise" (mp3)

Faith Global "Earth Report" (Survival Records 12" 1982)

Of all the bands I've ever obsessed over, early Ultravox! come top of the pile. I've blogged about how it all started, and it all came to a glorious head when I was asked to contribute a quote to the sleeve notes for the recent CD reissue of "ha!-ha!-ha!" (My favourite album, EVER.) John Foxx-era Ultravox! made three albums, "Ultravox!", "ha!-ha!-ha!" and "Systems Of Romance", but it's the first two albums that really do it for me. And the common thread running through those two albums? Their original guitarist, Stevie Shears. Stevie was replaced just before "Systems..." by Robin Simon, and while the exact reasons have never really been made clear, it seems as if he wasn't thought to be capable of making the new guitar sounds they wanted, as the band explored differing textures and moved towards a synthesiser dominated sonic palette. That, to me, was a crying shame. It was Stevie's coruscating, amphetamine-drenched waves of guitar that made the early recordings: "Distant Smile" (from "ha!-ha!-ha!") is a great case in point; the two-note riff, on strings stretched way further than sounds necessary, still stands as some of most primal, exciting rock music I've heard. It's Stevie who blazes all across "Young Savage", it's Stevie whose riff lights up "Hiroshima Mon Amour". And they replaced him. Oh well.

After his time in Ultravox (and following a brief sojourn in Cowboys International) Stevie Shears returned to the musical arena with his new band, Faith Global. Comprised of himself, Jason Guy on vocals and associated session musicians backing him up, they released this, their debut single, and a following album "The Same Mistakes" It's a classic slice of early 80's new wave, lots of whooshing synths and earnest vocals.It's let down slightly by a tentative production job, but the melodies are strong and precise, and the tune buries itself neatly in the back of your mind.The entire thing reeks a little of The Psychedelic Furs a bit TOO much, and there's not enough of Stevie's guitar histrionics for me, but I love it nonetheless. The albums great as well, remind me to rip a few tracks from it some time in the future.

And what of Faith Global? Well, like so many of the bands I feature on this blog; nothing much. Stevie doesn't seem to have done anything since, and I can't find any trace of Jason Guy whatsoever. If anyone has any information about either, I'd love to hear it! The single turns up on eBay from time to time, because it's a bit of an adjunct to the Ultravox! story, it doesn't go for huge money, so snap it up if you see it.

Faith Global "Earth Report" (mp3)

Spudeit Dive "Virgin Sands" (Sunken Beauty Records 12", 1983)

God, I love The Record & Tape Exchange. I know it's Music and Video Exchange now, but it'll always be the Record & Tape to me: I even ended working there for a couple of years when I was between Jobs in the late 90's... Here's a little bit of a history lesson about me and Record & Tape, it meanders a little, but we'll get there, so bear with me...

When I was a kid, I lived in the middle of nowhere, deep in the Wiltshire countryside. If I needed to go and shop for vinyl, it was either an hours cycle ride into Devizes, which basically had a Woolies and a couple of small music shops with tiny selections of records, or I'd have to wait and cadge a lift off my parents if they were going to Bath, Bristol or Swindon. I'd only really get to go shopping for records every couple of months, and even when I did get myself to a shop, I'd never really have a huge amount of money, so all my purchases had to be debated, pondered upon, and agonised over. All of that changed in 1981, when my father got a new job in London, and we moved to Hatch End, out in the North London suburbs. At first I was devastated to be leaving the landscape of my childhood behind, with all of it's memories, it's friendships and it's carefree happiness. This feeling of melancholia lasted about as long as it took me to work out that for about two pounds, I could get on a train, then a tube and be in the centre of Notting Hill Gate, in about an hour. I'd been to the Record & Tape in Notting Hill before, on school trips up to London; but now it could be my local record shop! I was like a kid in a sweet shop for the next six months, and my record collection grew exponentially. The great thing about R&T was it's bargain basement, full to bursting point of great vinyl at stupidly low prices. Because I still didn't really have much money, this is where I concentrated my shopping: buying things on the cheap because I liked the label they were on, because I'd seen positive reviews, because I'd heard them on the John Peel Show. All of this leads to a vitally important fact about the way my taste evolved: because I grew up buying piles of stuff at knock-down prices, it meant I ended up listening to, and loving, stuff that other people had discarded. I was being drawn to the underdogs of the musical world. Records that would otherwise have ended up unloved and alone. Sometimes it felt like a bit of a mission. To be honest, sometimes it still does.

This record is just such one of those purchases. I'd heard it on the John Peel show in 1983, taped it, loved it, memorised its details. One day shortly after that, it turned up in the basement of 38 NHG. I remember it cost me 40p. It's a fantastically dark record (I referred to the early 80's doom-rock that was everywhere in this post and this is the record I was promising to dig up and post for you) It's saturated with earth-shuddering bass, and it's liberally covered inwhat sounds like waves of church organ (or at least, an approximation of it) to give it that authentic Gothic feel. It's Bauhaus-y in it's sense of drama and scope, yet there's a little less glamour, and slightly more psychedelia in there.... And what on earth are the lyrics on about?

"Virgin Sands, walk over us.....swaying in the wheat"

Existential angst doesn't get more daft than that, does it? It's wonderfully overblown in it's vision and execution. I also remember Peel remarking on that line, and getting SERIOUSLY caught out by the ending, which seems to have been engineered specifically to frustrate him (make sure you listen to the end of the track, you'll see what I mean.)

And what of the band themselves? Well, nothing. Nothing at all. there's no real record of them on the Internet, bar this entry on Discogs. I don't recognise any of those names, and they don't seem to have done anything else. It's frustrating that there's no way of verifying whether the information is true or not.... Anyway, whatever its provenance, it's a truly great record, and deserves it's moment in the blog-spotlight.

(And as a little post-script, I still shop in 38 NHG, was just in there on Tuesday night. I bought "Amour Amour" by the Mobiles. It cost me 10p. Old habits die hard)

Spudeit Dive "Virgin Sands" (mp3)

King Kurt "Zulu Beat" (Thin Sliced Records, 1982)

Thanks to a post that Mick put up, where he described a single by The Tubes as being his favourite coloured vinyl record....it got me thinking: what was my favorite coloured vinyl single? Well, it's a toss-up between "Paranoid" by The Dickies on the clearest clear vinyl EVER ( it's like a piece of glass) the Plasmatics "Monkey Suit" and "Butcher Baby" both on splatter vinyl.... Or could it be the Luminous vinyl copy of "Moving Targets" by Penetration? I got several copies of that, one to keep, one to sell, and a couple which were totally mashed and cost me mere pennies. These last copies are for my walls; they function like nightlights-when you switch the lights off, they emit a nice calming glow :)

But I guess my real favourite is the record above: King Kurt's splendid "Zulu Beat" It eventually sold about 20,000 copies, and if those had all come in one great big bunch, they'd probably ended up on TOTP; as it was, the record was a bit of a labour of love-released in batches of around about a thousand, trickled out over a few years, with different covers, sleeves, and in different coloured vinyl. There's a wonderfully comprehensive list of all the variations here. The copy above is from the "Sick-th" edition, in a wonderfully pale pink vinyl, with splatters of other colours: every time I remove it from its sleeve, it brings a smile to my face.

The record itself, if you've never heard it, is unashamedly primal rockabilly. It does sound like it was recorded in a wardrobe, but the sense of daft confidence oozing from it's grooves manages to overcome any shortcomings in the quality of the sound. And to be honest, it sounded GREAT when it was blaring out of the speakers of (so it seemed) every student nightclub I went to between 1982 and 1986.

King Kurt are, unfortunately, very poorly represented by CD reissues, there's a lot of dodgy live CD's and the like, it's caveat emptor if you're in the mood for shopping- but should you wish, fill your boots. The band themselves appear to be back after a long hiatus, check them out on myspace.

King Kurt "Zulu Beat" (mp3)

Fallout Club "Wonderlust" (Happy Birthday Records, 1981)

I really need to get a new Scanner, don't I? Oh well. Here's another slice of rare early-80's electropop, and a poignant little tune, to boot.

"..And if we must, return to dust....then let it be; but give me just this moment...."

Within a few short years of penning those particular opening lines, the co-writer and singer of this song was gone. Trevor Herion (that's him on the sleeve) committed suicide sometime in the mid-80's. Details about Trevor are a little sketchy, but there's a small site here

"Not much, if anything at all is known about the life, work and tragic death of Trevor Herion, he was an Irishman in his mid 20s living in a squat with members of The Psychedelic Furs when he was first discovered as a replacement for the lead vocalist in a band called The Civilians. After the break-up of The Civilians he was to go on to form a band called The Fallout Club. After the dissolve of The Fallout Club, Trevor released a handful of singles and one truly terrific album called Beauty Life in 1983. Sadly a few years later, apparently suffering from severe mental troubles, he took his own life."

This single is also notable for being one of the first real Thomas Dolby productions (he produced the song, as well as co-writing it) Also featured is Matthew Seligman, who would go on to work with Dolby, as well as various other musicians, from Morrissey and The Stereo MC's, to David Bowie.

It came out on Happy Birthday, which is a label I don't know a great deal about; they released a couple of Fallout Club singles, as well as one by Low Noise (another Dolby project) and of course, the album "Pleasure" by Girls At Our Best. Herion himself released a couple of solo singles, one called "Kiss Of No Return" which came out on a German label called Imperial, and eventually, a solo album "Beauty Life". One of the singles from that album has been posted up on youtube (it's not actually a video, just a rip of the song)

The song itself is a wonderfully sprawling piece of melancholy electropop, Herions slightly gauche, yet heartfelt vocals cascading across the mariachi trumpets and pulsing syn-drums. It was released on 7" and 12" (I have both), but it's this 12" version that really shines.

Buy new Thomas Dolby stuff here. There's also links to the rest of his site, which contains loads of info and a blog..............

Fallout Club "Wonderlust" (12" Version) (mp3)