The Hepburns

On Monday 17/04/1989, two days after Hillsborough, John Peel opened his show with You’ll Never Walk Alone by Aretha Franklin. When the record finished he broke into tears …
The session that night was by Llanelli band The Hepburns. We’ve featured The Hepburns here before- and I’ll repeat my urge to readers to support these doyens of genre defying pop It was a good set.- available here, along with their later oeuvre. One thing has really been bugging me now tho for 20 years. On the track You Must Have Had It All what on earth is that first line?
I’ve lost touch with Matthew Jones so I can’t ask him, but surely someone must know?* **

I know the rest (apologies, Matt if you’re reading)
...the opportunist Denis Law,
Stanley Spencer,
A regent or
Egon Scheile, a little bit bent.
Zola, Lola Montez, Tommy Cooper's fez,
Burt and Hal and Marc Chagall
you must have had it all...

Sylvia Plath was like a lath, Carson McCullers was often slow, but never dull...

Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, Paul Klee if I may,Yves Montand and his lifelong companion, Simone Signoret

.Dirk Bogarde in Night Porter or someone a lot shorter...

*Footnote: I pondered this so long and hard last night that it appeared in my dreams, when, I was assured the answer was Jim Bowen , Aznavour and... or was it Debord?
** See Anonymous' post below for the answer!
You can help me out by listening to the track on this neat little MP3 gadget:




Or if you want to dowload it:

The Hepburns- Goalmouth Incident 12” (1987)

I first heard this record in one of those high ceilinged Victorian mental hospital wards. I was working with Matt Jones’ brother Jim and the day he received his copies of the record he was putting on a disco for the patients. The usual Tom Jones and Showaddywaddy fare was interspaced with numbers from The Smiths and tracks off this EP.
The Hepburns come from Llanelli and I knew the four guys who played on this, their first outing on vinyl.
Now, 22 years later ( no idea what happened to my 1987 copy) I’ve just managed to get hold of a copy from Japan.
The Hepburns (with Matt Jones and Mike Thomas from the original line up) are still going strong, and, much as I urged people to buy this EP 22 years ago, I would urge you to support them by picking up what you can of their more readily available releases from Radio Khartoum , where you can also find a free download of a recording of the tracks from their 1989 Peel Session.

Les Mun- drums
Matthew Jones- vocals
AD Clement- guitars
Michael Thomas- bass



UPDATE- 23.07.09- I've been alerted to quality problems with this transfer. I'm working to fix these problems and as soon as I have managed this I will I re up this record . Until then be warned that the sound quality is poor. I'll let you all know when this is fixed and apologies to any readers who have been disappointed by this.

UPDATE- 24.07.09- The problem is now resolved ( input levels were too high, causing distortion if you're interested in such things). The new link should be up by 12:00 BST tomorrow. Thanks pop pickers.

UPDATE- 24.07.09- Fixed! New rip, new link.

The Hepburns- Electrified, (from countryside to city) 12" (?1990)

Llanelli- rugby, tinplate, beer…
I had to get my thinking cap on for this one.
I dug out this Hepburns 12” and found that curiously, there is no date on it. I looked it up on Discogs- not listed.
If the Peel Session was spring 1989 and Aled Richards replaced Les Mun on drums during the summer of 1990 (my memory is sketchy) then this must fall somewhere in between. Early 1990?
The sound quality on London Welshman is a bit fuzzy I’m afraid. I think that this is more than made up for by the inclusion of Dive- Matt Jones at his finest, a sort of male Dorothy Squires.
The latter day incarnation of the Hepburns is well worth checking out – Matt still writes a wicked bossa nova tune and you also get the drumming of R n B legend Pat Grover.
I’ll repeat my request: does anybody have a copy of Goalmouth Incident that they could share with the world? I dunno what happened to mine...
Line up here:
Les Mun- drums
Matt Jones- guitar , vocals
The King of Wales- fender telecaster
Mike Thomas- bass
Iain Davies- keyboards
Cronsey- artwork, pigsqueal, harmonica & krugers

The Magic of The Hepburns (1988)

They graced the front page of the NME and played a cracking Peel Session the Monday after Hillsborough.
This is pretty hard to find, Japanese CD issues appear on e bay from time to time at bonkers prices, but it's worth it.
After 23 years and several line-up changes The Hepburns are still going strong, so you can support the lads buy buying some of their more recent releases.
Does anyone have a copy of their Goalmouth Incident E.P?