Ed Sirrs "I Think I Think Too Much" (Oval, 1979)

I'm on a roll today, aren't I? Two posts in one day! Such is the impatience and enthusiasm which results from being new to the mp3 blog game :)
And my over-exuberance is your gain, that's for certain. not only do you get the unreleased Age Of Chance track below *points down*, but you can also have this much-overlooked gem as well.
Ed Sirrs is one of this country's most respected music photographers, working with some of the best musicians in the business. He shot some of Nirvana's most iconic images, as well as being heavily involved with photographing The Manic Street Preachers ( it was Ed that shot THAT image of Richey with "4 Real" carved into his arm)
He also photographed my band many times, though quite why I never asked him about this record, I'm not sure.
"I Think....." is a great little slice of punked-up electro-dub, coming over like a restrained Dr Mix & The Remix, with that little drum machine gently pulsing away, and the buzzing synth line over the top....if it had to be strictly defined, I suppose it might be labelled "no wave".
Ed does a nice line in self-deprecating vocals, bemoaning his own lack of success and good fortune. Ed, you're too modest. The single crept out in 1979 on Charlie Gillet's Oval imprint, never really reaching the wider audience it deserved. If you see one these days, it'll probably set you back somewhere between £10-20.

Ed Sirrs "I Think I Think Too Much" (mp3)

Hobbies Of Today "Metal Boys" (Waxworks, 1979)

"Your house is burning down, what do you save?"
It's become the question that bulks out most interviews I read now; when I was growing up it used to be: "The four-minute warning has just sounded, what do you do?" . The answer was invariably that you'd kiss your loved ones/pets/schoolmates etc and tell them how you'd always loved them and you'd see them on the other side. But now, all that seems to have been superseded by this "saving stuff from the flames" business. And it's always stuff. Possessions, valuables, whatever. It's a measure of how materialistic we've become, I suppose: we used to worry about kissing our loved ones goodbye, now we worry about how we'll get that HUGE plasma screen out of the lounge before the flames ruin the screen.
Well, let's just apply the "saving stuff from the flames" argument to the one thing that all of us vinyl freaks out there would rather not think about- the record collection.
It's a scary thought, isn't it? What would you save? For the most part, I wouldn't be that bothered (yeah, right) seeing as most of the old punk stuff is now on CD, most of the rest of the collection is available somewhere on line.......
Of course, there's exceptions. I've got a couple of Lee Perry acetates with unreleased dub mixes which are completely irreplaceable, and most of the old Ska and Rocksteady sevens would have to be saved...oh, and the old-school hardcore 12"s, and the Lemon Jelly "Soft Rock" 7"......
Oh bugger.
This isn't going at all well, is it?
Right. Let me come out and say definitively, that my Hobbies Of Today single would really be one of the only things I'd save in the event of an unforeseen conflagration. What is it? Well, it's nothing, really. A long-forgotten 7" from a band from Manchester. Look at that sleeve! the lettering on the hand-printed cover was done with those plastic stencils you bought from John Menzies! The label (Waxworks) was a vehicle of convenience for this particular release, and I never saw anything else on it......
The driving force behind the band was Kevin Hobbi, who appeared to release at least one solo single after Hobbies Of Today's demise(it's somewhere in here, and will cost you £100): the band only recorded this one single, and had a track on a local compilation LP (I remember that from looking at adverts in the back of Sounds) and that was it.
And, there's the rub. That's why I'd save this particular piece of vinyl from the flames. I bought this in 1979. It came from the Small Wonder mail order catalogue-I can remember buying it with a copy of The Only Ones "Another Girl,Another Planet", with the "Flower" sleeve, and some other punk singles, whose identity are lost in the mists of time. I remember getting the postal orders from the Post Office, and the wonderful burst of excitement when the postman turned up with my single a couple of weeks later...and that copy that arrived with the postman, in 1979, on my doorstep in Wiltshire, is the only one I've ever seen. I've looked in an awful lot of record racks over the years, hell, I've even WORKED in second-hand record shops, yet I've never seen another copy.So that's why it escapes the flames; not because it's the greatest record ever made, but because I know I'd never replace it.
But why does it matter so much to me? Because it's just such a great little song: it's in the combination of that amateurish drum machine with the synths buzzing over the top- it's in the way the melody strains to go up a note when it reaches the chorus,it's in the wonderfully constructed harmonies, and most of all it's in the utterly unforgettable guitar riff....this record has haunted me since I first heard it, and it haunts me still.
If you ever catch me staggering out of a burning building, I'll be spluttering, coughing, wiping the soot from my eyes, and clutching a copy of this single.


Hobbies Of Today "Metal Boys" (mp3)

English Subtitles "Tannoy" (Glass Records, 1981)

We've done some of the lighter, poppier, electropop of the early 1980's; it's time to get just that little bit darker....
English Subtitles released one single on Small Wonder "Time Tunnel" (It's available on the Small Wonder Punk Singles Compilation CD), then this single, a flexidisc which came out on Crepuscule and finally a compilation album which contained one side of their studio recordings, and a live set on the other side.
This single is just WONDERFUL, a doomy slice of malevolent goth-rock, full of foreboding and self-loathing; Karl Burns from The Fall plays drums on the track, but not many other details survive....
"They're calling my name, over the Tannoy, they're paging me...what do they want? What do they want?"
Hey, who knows. One thing is for sure, the singer (whose name escapes me) wasn't just putting on this display of paranoia for show: he genuinely had some severe "issues". The single comes with a facsimile of a newspaper cutting, detailing an "episode" he had whilst on a tube train-this culminated in him driving a six inch nail right through the palm of his own hand, whilst he calmly collected the resultant flow of blood on a sheet of plastic. This pool of blood was used for the sleeve of the single (see above). Classy.
1981 was chock-full of doom-rock like this, remind me to dig out some more for you (I've got a 12" by Spudeit Dive called "Virgin Sands" which would fit the bill.....) but for now: enjoy :)

English Subtitles: "Tannoy" (mp3)

Camera Obscura "Destitution" (Small Wonder 1983)

First off, let's make one thing quite clear: it's not that Camera Obscura (not that there's anything wrong with them, I'd just hate people to get the two mixed up)
This Camera Obscura were a duo, Peter Oldroyd and Nigel James, from York. This single was their highpoint, and if truth be told, was their only real proper recorded output. They contributed a track to a compilation album called "Directions" which is utterly impossible to find...(I've been looking for quite a while)
"Destitution" was the last proper single to be released on Pete Stennet's legendary Small Wonder imprint, and made a decent showing in the independent charts on its release in 1983. There was a fair amount of A&R interest in the band, but nothing ever came of it.
Interestingly enough, for a band with such a slender catalogue and such a truncated career, there's an excellent history of the band on a site they've put up themselves:
Camera Obscura History.
Interestingly, the band appears to have had a recent burst of activity, which resulted in the production of an album of early demos being issued. It's a limited edition vinyl album, and is available here.
Sadly, the tracks on the single have never been re-issued anywhere, as a consequence it's another one of those postpunk electro-pop classics which now commands quite a high price on the secondhand market. It's a bit of a surprise to me really, I see copies of this single far more often than something like Puncture's "Mucky Pup" which was the first Small Wonder 7", but hey ho.
The song itself is another one of those timelocked early 80's synthpop classics. Just the right amount of alienation and melancholia in the lyrics, and crucially, lots of syn-drums, so you could air-drum along in your bedroom.
It's been a week for cult electro-pop hasn't it? Now I've given you a trilogy of synth tunes, I'll be casting the net a little wider next week, but for now; enjoy this, and have a great weekend.

Camera Obscura "Destitution" (mp3)

Panorama "Dream Home" (Kamera, 1982)

Pete O'Dowd (aka Pete Petrol) was Spizz's foil in Spizz Oil and Spizz 77, and would continue to play a role in the group on and off until he relocated to New Zealand sometime in the early 1990's.

This record was Pete alongside Jim Solar (also a Spizz member) who seemed to have joined up (whilst on hiatus from Spizz? who knows) sometime in 1982.

It's a radical departure form all the Spizz stuff, being in fact, a fairly faithful copy of the first couple of Depeche Mode singles. If you could whack Dave Gahans vocals over the top, it would have been a double "A" side with "Dreaming Of Me". What I love about it is the sense of experimentation: 1981-2 were fertile times for synth experimentation, the technology was new, yet becoming readily available- and just as with Punk 5 years previously, there was a glorious slew of people just "having a go". This sense of breathless enthusiasm permeates the entire song, there's a confidence and a swagger to it's metronomic heartbeat.
Also, it sums up the times quite well:

Tinny beat? check.

Glacial vocals? check.

Lyrics dealing with the theme of urban alienation? check.

And all of this on a label more used to relasing singles by The Fall!

It's an oddity, to be sure, but I had no idea it was valuable as well, maybe because it's never been issued anywhere else) Mine was bought in 1982, in a pack of "10 singles for a quid". Vinyl Tap have got a copy, if you'd like to buy it-it'll set you back thirty sheets. Crikey.

Spizz stuff on Amazon: Here.

Panorama "Dream Home" (mp3)

Victims Of Pleasure "Jack And Jill" (Rialto, 1982)

This was the first thing I ripped when I finally got a USB turntable; simply one of my favourite records ever.

Not a great deal is known about Victims of Pleasure: they put out one single "When You're Young" on their own label (Victims of Pleasure #VOP 1) which was picked up for a reissue by Rialto records shortly after. They had a few tracks on the "Live at the 101 Club-Off The Cuff" compilation, then another 12" single (which i've NEVER seen) then nothing.

But the interesting thing about this single is it marks the beginning of Virginia Astley's career: that's her on the rich, swooping piano lines which fill the chorus. i'm not actually sure whether she was on the first VOP single or not, but on "Jack And Jill" you can't mistake her, she's the person who lifts this little piece of electro-pop from workaday into the realm of pure genius.

It's a slight little song: two synths a drum machine, voice, and then of course, that piano. There's hints of "Isolation" in there, but if i'm totally honest, the piano always makes me think of "All Creatures Great And Small"

I've loved this record since I bought it (20p in the Record and Tape in Pembridge Road!) and it's never far from my ipod.

Enjoy.

"Jack And Jill" - Victims Of Pleasure (mp3)

OK, let's get this party started.

My name's Iain. I help to run Shadowglobe, I used to be a DJ on Xfm (R.I.P.) and a musician as well.
And, since the latter part of the 1970's, I've been an avid collector of records that only I seemed to love. So, just to put that to the test, I figured it was time to start up a little mp3 blog, to share some of those tunes with you.
Enjoy
x