Intaferon "Getoutoflondon" (Intacontinentalballisticmix) (Chrysalis Records 12", 1983)

Intaferon are a band that are absolutely perfect for the Blogosphere. Unloved in their own time, yet responsible for a short run of highly memorable, quirky, melodic singles. The subject matter was always clever and moving enough to tug at the heartstrings, meaning people tend to hear them once, then spend the rest of their lives going: "there was this record I heard about 25 years ago, and I can't remember who it was by, but it goes like this....." They're a band who've feature on some of the blogs I read frequently: over at Dust On the Stylus, and at Lost Bands Of The New Wave Era (updates! PLEASE!) And of course, the records remain unavailable on CD, to this day. Well, almost unavailable- the single version of "Getoutoflondon" was, IIRC, on the soundtrack to an Olsen twins film "Winning London", alongside Plastic Bertrand, of all people. It's also turned up on some of those US compliation CD's of forgotten 80's songs. So, if we stick to the rules of this blog, the single version can't be posted, but I'm pretty sure the 12" has never officially been re-released, so we'll have some of that.

Intaferon were a duo, featuring two Simons, a Fellowes (later to go solo as Simon F, and even later than that to release Techno records as F Machine) and a Gillham, who seems to have dropped off the radar completely, apparently to go and teach Philosophy. Their trick was to work with some of the best producers of the day- with David Motion on their epic third single "Baby Pain" and with Martin Rushent on this, their debut single. I've always been in awe of Martin Rushent, his productions are one of the things that completely define the 1980's for me- his work on "Dare", with Altered Images, and his REMIXES...... It's his remixes that blow my mind. Have a listen to the stretched version of "Radio" by the Members, or "Homosapien" by Pete Shelley to see what I mean. But the one remix that towers over all of them IMHO, is this one. It's 8 minutes of frenetic, amphetamine-drenched, febrile madness. It actually starts straight away by piling into the third verse, which breaks all of the rules of remixing, then proceeds to thumb its nose at any of the remaining conventions of the remixers trade. Linn drums twitter, on the edge of seizure, vocals echo into an unintelligible soup of delay and FX....

And then there's the edits! Like the Latin Rascals a few years later, Rushent was a master of the lightning fast edit. The song seems to jerk to a sudden stop, then re-start....sometimes with no regard for the beat. It's simultaneously exciting and confusing, and that's what makes it work.. At the end of the day, it's an absolute blast to hear a record where so many ideas are struggling to be heard, and yet the song still manages to survive. It's an iconic production, and one which still stands up to examination, even after nearly 25 years.

All this genius didn't help the single, unfortunately- it only reached number 93 in the charts. Rumour has it that the single's progress was initially stymied by some rather thoughtless promotion... someone in the Chrysalis press office had some flyers printed up before the single's release saying "Get Out Of London- In Two Weeks!", in an attempt to drum up press interest. Bad move. Some of the journalists, fearing they'd been targeted by terrorists, or disgruntled musicians, called Scotland Yard. The band's relationship with the press was never the same after that.

As I said, there are no legal compilations of Intaferon's output, though bootleg CD's do turn up on eBay from time to time. As ever, caveat emptor. Gratifyingly, martin Rushent is back producing again, after a few years where he seemed to have stepped back from the business. He has a myspace page, check him out here. maybe I'll leave him a message and ask if there are any unreleased Miro Miroe remixes in the vaults.....

no sites exist for Intaferon themselves, but if anyone knows any different....you know where I am.

Intaferon "Getoutoflondon" (Intacontinentalballisticmix) (mp3)

Bon Jovi - "Keep The Faith" (Unreleased Jesus Jones Remix) (Mercury Records, 1992)

Well, I'm very aware of the basic rules of this blog, which state:
1) Is it available on CD?
2)If not, would people be interested in hearing it?

I know the "real" version of this song certainly is available- but I'm going to take a punt on this particular version being of interest. It's been heard by about 50 people over the years, and no stock copies of it exist, there are just the Masters, the DAT's and the cassette copies that were dubbed off at the time. So it's a real oddity. I've played it to a close circle of friends and family over the years, and they've always got a kick out of hearing it, so, after 15 long years, here it is. I guess I should have asked Bon Jovi first...but hey, I lost their number :)
Why do I love this song? Well, not because it's perfect (it isn't), but because it has that indefinable quality to it- Zeitgeist. The ghost of the time (or to borrow a little phrase from Hawkwind: the spirit of the age). And I realise that I love this song whilst obviously having had a great deal to do with how it sounds; but if you can't cherish the things you've created, then what can you cherish?
So, let's rewind 15 years shall we? It's 1992, and i'm in a band (Jesus Jones. I'm the idiot bouncing up and down behind the keyboards). Now, one of the most marvellous things about being in a band is the constant string of seemingly random requests that come your way. Can you fly to Canada for three days to do some promo? Sure. Can you attend the launch party for a film you've never heard of? Sure- well, hang on, is there a free bar? There is? In that case- sure. Can you remix the next Bon Jovi single?
You WHAT?
There are surprises around every corner, and this was one of the biggest. Myself and Mike Edwards were charged with remixing the upcoming Bon Jovi single, the first to be taken from their comeback album "Keep The Faith". We were, it has to be said, gobsmacked, and a little confused as to why they'd approached Jesus Jones in the first place. The song had a four-on-the-floor kick drum, a shuffling drum pattern, it was poppy, it was...well, for want of a better word, it was quite baggy . So someone, somewhere must have put two and two together, found they made five, but called us anyway.
And so it was, that on a chilly Wednesday morning, in September 1992, I arrived at Mike's house with a few records, a few ideas, and the rough tape of this song. We created the rough bones of the remix at Mike's house, in his bedroom studio. I love the fact that Bon Jovi recorded the album, with Bob Rock, in hugely expensive studios across the US, and this song got remixed in a tiny backroom in Kilburn, North London.
The Zeitgeist inherent in this remix comes, partly from the way it was created, and also the way It sounds. It was created using the pre-eminent technology du jour, Atari's Cubase, and by an Akai S1000 sampler. Cheap, affordable and easy to use, this technology was being used all across the UK to create an absolute torrent of new Dance Music, most interestingly for me: breakbeat hardcore. It was to two hardcore white labels I turned to get the breaks for this remix- "Don't Go" by The Awesome 3, and "Dis Generation" by Cosmic Brian. Once we'd got the breaks sampled, we steamed ahead with the tune. The bass line came from our trusty Juno 6, as did the acidic squelches, the Roland D10 keyboard gave us the hats, tambourines and little drum fills, and the rest of it came from Messrs Jovi. One of the funniest memories of the entire process is listening the vocal track and hearing the line "I am broken like an arrow" and actually hearing "I am broken like marrow" We couldn't understand it- who would be broken like a marrow? Why would you compare yourself to a marrow? Even now, I'm still wondering.
We basically turned the song into a slice of poppy hardcore, with a chirpy little keyboard line, and rolling breakbeats. We made a couple of major changes to the song structure, and it's these changes which, I suspect, may be the reason behind this Remix remaining unreleased. First off, we removed the line about "everyone bitchin' 'cos the times are tough".. it just felt wrong when placed into the context of a poppy remix. So we doubled up the first line of the bridge "everybody needs somebody to love". In hindsight, we were really messing with another artist's craft, and I can kind of see why they would be pissed off. But hey, it was all done with good intentions. The second change we made was to totally re-record the guitar solo. It was my greatest musical achievement EVER, finally getting to play a totally bitching solo! We chopped the original solo into around a dozen tiny segments (if you listen carefully, you can hear the repeated phrases) and replayed them, whilst we ran the backing track. It was great fun, and i reckon the solo that emerges sounds AMAZING (well, I would, wouldn't I?) However, I'm willing to bet Richie Sambora didn't feel quite the same. Whatever.
And that was it, really; we mixed it down on the 1st of October, in Master-rock studios, just up the road on Kilburn High Street. At the mixing stage, we also recorded a mental, fast version (about 150bpm) without the vocals, called the "Shariba" mix. That version will stay unreleased :)
So, it's a song with Zeitgeist- for it's use of the technology of the time, the fact that it was recorded in basic conditions, in a spirit of adventure, of emerging possibility, with naive optimism and some of the sounds that were in our heads at the time. It's wrapped up in how I felt and thought about music back then, how I thought it should be made, how I thought it should sound, and most importantly, it's wrapped up in memories of how my life was: how things were when the band was at it's peak, and all this madness was around us. I'm certainly not pining for those days, in fact, I'm rather glad to be free of them, but it's interesting to revisit the memory bank every once in a while.
This mp3 has been dubbed off a cassette, so the quality isn't perfect, but, enjoy. It's been a long time coming.
Oh, and don't tell Bon Jovi. Cheers.
:)

Bon Jovi "Keep The Faith" (Jesus Jones Remix) (mp3)