Crispy Ambulance ‎– "Frozen Blood (1980-82)" (LTM ‎– ltmcd 2327)

To round up our short ride in a crispy ambulance,here's the obligatory Singles,and sessions compilation from the Ambulance's best years before they broke up for the first time. Allegedly, they are together again and touring.(Wasn't there a Half Man Half biscuit tune where the line 'You're Going Home In A Crispy Ambulance' was chanted in a football terrace chant stylee?)
This includes a high fidelity version of their Peel session from january 1981, which you should already have downloaded on the "Blue and Yellow Of the Yacht Club" cassette.
Also we have the first three singles on Factory, and some live stuff to fill it up with.
Do 'they' call this stuff 'Cold Wave' these days? I dunno, but the term seems to safely describe the Isolation one feels when listening to this band; not helped by the fact that not many of your mates thought that they were any good .A myth spread by the music media of the early eighties.Like a fine wine this music has matured nicely into a full bodied frozen blood Manchester red, thawed out from the vintage years of 1980-82.

Tracklist:

1 Not What I Expected 3:56
2 Deaf 4:04
3 Come On 2:09
4 Drug User - Drug Pusher 6:24
5 October 31st 3:32
6 Egypt 5:07
7 A Sense Of Reason 4:00
8 Eastern Bloc 5:24
9 Concorde Square 3:09
10 The Presence 5:15
11 Headhunters 2:54
12 Frozen Blood 4:42
13 Turnbuckle 5:03
14 The Gift Of Danger 3:18
15 Hollow Points 4:39
16 The Grind 4:30
17 Cult 3:13

DOWNLOAD cryogenically from a crispy morgue HERE!

Crispy Ambulance ‎– "Open, Gates Of Fire" (Les Temps Modernes CSBT V: III) 1983

Mail order only cassette of live Crispy Ambulance; although where the audience actually was on this tape I dunno.It sounds like they are playing to an empty room,which they probably were.
Its good to hear these songs without any production,or effects, like they're playing inside a large cardboard box. Hempsall seems to be responding to an audience, but they don't register in the recording process at all; lost in the noise reduction-less tape hiss.
I have no information as to where or when these tunes were actually recorded,but i'm guessing around 1982-ish.

Tracklist:

1. United, 

2. Chill,
3. I Talking/You Talking (Parts 1 + 2),
4. Federation, 

5. Travel Time, 

6. Say Shake, 

7. Cult,
8. Green Light/White Shirt, 

9. Brutal,
10. The Plateau Phase, 

11. Choral,
12. Nightfall Ends The Ceasefire, 

13. The Poison

DOWNLOAD and open the gates of a muffled post punk world HERE!

Crispy Ambulance ‎– "The Blue And Yellow Of The Yacht Club" (CSBT V.II) 1983

Another Danny and the Dressmakers member went on to be in, so-called 'Joy Division copyists', the wonderfully monikered, Crispy Ambulance.
None other than thee Alan Hempsall, who famously, had to fill in for Ian Curtis at a gig while he had a Epileptic Fit. According to the Joy Div biopic, he was offered twenty quid by Rob Gratton, and when he asked for his twenty notes came the classic reply of "Oh sure, here it is,it's in my FUCK OFF pocket!"
Of Course, Crispy Ambulance sounded nothing like Joy Division.Whoever made that comparison must have never heard or seen either band.
Personally I'm a Crispy Ambulance Fan, especially of this Non-Hannett lo-fi stuff.Although Chris Nagle's version of Martin's over-production of the bands Official album, 'The Plateau Phase',actually worked quite well.In some ways darker than 'Closer'?
This cassette-only compilation, bungs together their only Peel Session,with other fuzzy live stuff, stumbling interviews, and other radio sessions.Post-punk miserablism at its finest.

Tracks A7 to A10 recorded for Picadilly Radio at Pennine Sound Studios, Oldham 16/7/80. 
Tracks B6 to B8 recorded for BBC Radio 1 John Peel Session at Langham 1 12/1/81. 
Track B13 recorded at first ever Crispy Ambulance gig at Spurley Hey Youth Centre in 1978. 

Tracklist:

A1 Motorway Boys
A2 Suzie's In Fragments (Live)
A3 This Perfect Day
A4 No Surrender
A5 Interview (Radio 17/3/81)
A6 Opening Theme
A7 The Presence
A8 A Sense Of Reason
A9 Concorde Square
A10 The Eastern Bloc
B1 3 Minutes From The Frontline (Live)
B2 From The Cradle To The Grave (Live)
B3 Interview (Radio 17/3/81)
B4 Deaf (Live)
B5 New Violence
B6 Come On
B7 October 31st
B8 Egypt
B9 Interview (Radio 17/3/81)
B10 Rain Without Clouds (Live)
B11 The Presence
B12 Feedback Phase
B13 Drug User/Drug Pusher (Detail)

DOWNLOAD to play at the next yacht club soirée HERE!

Biting Tongues ‎– "Libreville" (Paragon – VIRTUE 1) 1983

More excellent experimental post punk with a smell of avant jazz mixed in for comfort.
Yes this Mancunian combo really did include future 808 state and Danny and the Dressmakers legend Graham Massey; who, coincidentally, I heard had recently received an Honorary doctorate from some dodgy university in Lancashire? This is a man who once co-wrote a song called 'Com'on Baby Light My Shite'!? 

Tracklist:

A1 First Use All The G's 10:05
A2 Forty Four 3:18
A3 Smash The Strategic Hamlets 5:26
A4 Live It 1:34
B1 The Toucanostra 4:30
B2 Doctor Restore He Sight 6:15
B3 Dirt For 485 3:24
B4 Aair Care 5:00

DOWNLOAD from libreville HERE!

Biting Tongues ‎– "Don't Heal" (Situation Two ‎– SITU 1)

Hey weren't that bloke from 808 State in Biting Tongues?.......who gives a shit?....unless it's the same bloke who was in the immortal 'Danny and the Dressmakers', which it is, so this album must be incredible, right?
Graham Massey was indeed in both truly awful baggy-rave hitmakers 808 State, and bag-o-shite shitkickers,and truly wonderful,DIY legends Danny and the Dressmakers. How could this dichotomy exist? And now we find him in Improv Progressive-Jazz-art post-punkers Biting Tongues, whose very presence seems to make the cop-out musical category of ,'experimental', seem to be invented just for them.....well,not quite,but it sounded good.
As do they!
I always suspected that Danny and the Dressmakers contained proper musicians with prog leanings within their ranks,and this is the proof. If you played music like this in 1978 you would have risked a lynching. So it was highly advisable to hide any musical ability,and/or intelligence, behind a fog of incompetence and 'gob'.
After repressing your real IQ was becoming tiresome by 1979, interesting music started to reappear under the Post-Punk epithet,and Progressive music was cool again....well, I say 'again ' advisedly;maybe it made Prog cool for the first time in fact?
Biting Tongues were a truly uncompromising 'experimental' prog-punk outfit, but there was a hint,or a stench, of accessibility that so much 'experimental' music lacks. You can really play this more than once, maybe even dance to it?.......or maybe not?

Tracklist:

Face Up - The White Valise

A1 Blue Traces 4:38
A2 Dog Face 5:50
A3 Heart Disease 4:20
A4 Or With Eyes Closed 5:56

Face Down - Darkroom Skin Transfers

B1 Stabbing Soft Ice 5:06
B2 You Can Choke Like That 3:51
B3 Walkaway 1:59
B4 Coil 4:40
B5 R.R.O.R. 1:48
B6 Give Diamonds / You Can't 6:40

DOWNLOAD and bite the pillow HERE!

The Mud Hutters ‎– "Factory Farming" (Defensive Records ‎– NATO 3) 1980

" A Small car dwiven at high speed phwoo a cwowded stweet"???? This is worth it just for forcing the singer to sing that line when he has a pronounced lisp. Up there with Toyah's "It'th a mythdery" as the one of the most inadviseable adventures into verbal gymnastics in pop history. Awwww bless?
Check out the lovely Toyah sending herself up on legendary UK 'kids' saturday morning show "Tiswas" back in '81, singing "I'm A Misery", and getting pied by 'The Phantom Flan Flinger'.....click here,it's great stuff.

Oh yes,nearly forgot...., The Mud Hutters were superb post-punky proggy classic UK DIY(but with obvious musicianly talents,especially the drummer), and use the same cheapo organ that all those Manchester bands had at that time,like The Fall and The Spherical Objects; probably the actual same organ that they shared about to save the cash they didn't have.

Tracklist:

A1 Taking The Biscuit
A2 I Can Be
A3 Small Car
A4 Feels Right
A5 Page 39
A6 Bowl Of Cherries
B1 MPC With Me
B2 Coloured Glass
B3 On The Beach
B4 Cultivation
B5 Page 41
B6 Rearranging

DOWNLOAD some free range produce HERE!

The Mud Hutters ‎– "The Declaration EP" (Defensive Records ‎– N.A.T.O. TWO) 1979

A declaration of independance that hasn't become as Ironic as its more celebrated political cousin in the new world.....(Notice I ignored the opportunity to make a NWO pun,mainly because I no longer recognise its existence outside the fantasies of the paranoid masses).
Basically any group which has a lead singer with a speech impediment and a future Diagram brother in it has to be good?......I can confirm that they are very good by the way!Perfect,art damaged lo-fi post-punk from manchester in 1979....can't get better than that combination of wow factors?!
In fact there's more Mud Hutters on the "Four Ways Out" compilation, also on their own Defensive Records label.

Tracklist:

Bouncy Side:

A1 Water Torture
A2 Chances
A3 Stabbings

Hot Side:

B1 Fragments
B2 Danger
B3 It Doesn't Seem To Help Now

I declare this DOWNLOAD open!

The Mud Hutters ‎– "Information EP" (Defensive Records ‎– N.A.T.O. ONE) 1979

As well as The Diagram Brothers, and Dislocation Dance, Andy Diagram was in The Mud Hutters; a lo-fi prog-punk combo who could obviously play their instruments.That's right, a post punk group that included musicians!? Especially impressed by the jazz rock drumming of 'Muddy Dick' (Who I assume was Richard Harrison? Who played with such liminaries as God Is My Co-Pilot,Sterolab,and of course, Dislocation Dance, among many others)
This 33rpm 7" EP, fitted in nicely with the DIY look;the hand printed sleeve,appropriately  muddy sound, standard junior typewriter typeface, and a bunch of unpretentious choons.
"No God" has a disposable John Barry-esque melody line that would not have gone unplaced on an early Dislocation dance record.

Tracklist:

A1 No God
A2 Nice Guy/Left Right
B1 All About
B2 Neolithic Dub

DOWNLOAD from the information EP superhighway HERE!

Dislocation Dance ‎– "Music Music Music" (New Hormones ‎– ORG 15) 1981

The title of this LP by Mancunian Indie-Jazz combo, Dislocation Dance, should really have been 'Muzak Muzak Muzak' and played in shopping malls everywhere,the BBC2 afternoon test-card, with the odd daytime TV theme tune thrown in.Very pleasant it is too, in a Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass meets Belle and Sebastian kind of way.
It comes from around the time that groups like Weekend, and Everything but the Girl were polluting the proto-indie stream with their Jazzy Pop blandness.This at least has something spookily strange about its post-punk easy listening vibe, and if it was less 'cool' would have not been out of place being spun in the chill-out rooms of clubbing culture in the nineties.If this was by the Harvey Averne Dozen I would have bought it for the second time around in 1995.
A weird fact is that is was released on the label that kick started the DIY boom, the Buzzcocks' New Hormones, and features Andy Diagram of the wonderful Diagram Brothers, moonighting, on the Trumpet.
They were in fact a lot less polished than this,and a tad more Post-Punky and funky when they appeared on the classic UK DIY Manchester Musicians Collective compilation "Four Ways Out" only the year previously.How fast things moved in them thar days?

Tracklist:

A1 Stand Me Up
A2 Don't Knock Me Down
A3 YOPS Course
A4 Meeting Mum And Dad
A5 Friendship
A6 Take A Chance (On Romance)...
A7 ...Have A Chance
B1 Roof Is Leaking
B2 With A Smile On Your Face And A Frown In Your Heart
B3 Vendetta (Theme)
B4 Narrow Laughs
B5 Footloose
B6 Can't Race Time... And The Mad Killer (Coda)
B7 Wonder What I'll Do Tomorrow

Bonus Tracks:

15 Rosemary (7" single)

16 Shake (B-Side)

17 Can't Race Time....& The Mad killer (12" Version)

18 You'll Never Know (7" Single)

19 You Can Tell (B-Side)

DOWNLOAD some Muzak Muzak Muzak HERE!

Medium Medium ‎– "The Glitterhouse + Singles" (Cherry Red ‎– BRED 19) 1981

Nottingham's contribution to the post-punk funk party, was Medium Medium, last seen on the "Hicks from the Sticks" compilation.
I'd like to say that they were the thinking person's "ABC", but ABC, were the thinking person's ABC.
The best equivalent I could dream up was that they were a moodier, less naff Duran Duran, but without the shit clothes, and lacking  Le Bon's subhuman poetry....(I've still yet to hear any lyrics to beat "You're just about as easy as a nuclear war" for shear pretentious incompetence).
Compared to Duran Duran, Medium Medium (notice the similar group name style?), were Stockhausen.
Around this time there was a fine line between chart friendly naffness and cult status.One minute you're as cool,and as skint, as A Certain Ratio, the next you've turned into Modern Romance and rightly contemplating suicide.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Medium Medium wanted to be Modern Romance,or at least the thinking person's Duran Duran.

Tracklist:

"The Glitterhouse LP":

1 Hungry So Angry 3:54
2 Serbian Village 4:47
3 The Glitterhouse 2:11
4 Guru Maharaj Ji 8:48
5 Further Than Funk Dream 5:56
6 Mice Or Monsters 5:40
7 That Haiku 5:44

BONUS TRACKS:

8 Nadsat Dream (B-side of Hungry so Angry 7")

9 Splendid Isolation (Splendid Isolation EP)

10 If You Touched Her She'd Smear (Splendid Isolation EP)

11 7th Floor (Splendid isolation EP)

12 Them Or Me (7" Single 1979)

DOWNLOAD in hunger not anger HERE!

A Certain Ratio ‎– "The Graveyard And The Ballroom" (Factory ‎– Fact 16) 1980

One of the earliest of the post-punk crowd to introduce the 'Funk'into the 'Punk', was Manchester's shorts wearing doom funk merchants, A Certain Ratio.

Factory undoubtedly flirted with Fascist chic,both in their artwork and the group names.There are obvious examples,but here we're looking at 'A Certain Ratio'. Their name came from a speech by Hitler referring to the ratio of Jewish blood someone needed to have before they were considered as being a Jew.This was later explained away as coming from Eno's song "The True Wheel".....if correct, maybe they should have done a bit more research before using it.....but then again why not? These days all one has to do is mention anything 'Third Reich'-y, and the finger pointers are out labelling one a Nazi.Which is a major violation of the old adage, "Forget the past and you're doomed to repeat it".

A bit like pop music and art I suppose. 

Back when Cassettes were futuristic in conception,this cassette only release,hit the streets in February 1980,and came in plastic pouches of various colours and designs.Not very Nazi-chic,until you see the photo of four sharp young men clad in various tank tops,cardigans,with the odd moustache,then think that this wouldn't have looked out of place on the cover of a Laibach album in the 90's. 

"The Graveyard and the Ballroom" contains 14 tracks: 7 demo songs from a session recorded at Graveyard Studios in September 1979 (side A) and 7 songs from a gig at the Electric Ballroom in October 1979 (side B), together with Joy Division* and The Distractions.

This album captures ACR at their best, still raw (as in BH...before Hannett),Dark and not too funky.

[*NB....Just so happens that I have a bootleg of the Joy Division set from that night as well.....which you can download by clicking HERE!]

Tracklist:

The Graveyard
A1 Do The Du (Casse)
A2 Faceless
A3 Crippled Child
A4 Choir
A5 Flight
A6 I Feel
A7 Strain

The Ballroom
B1 All Night Party
B2 Oceans
B3 The Choir
B4 The Fox
B5 Suspect
B6 Flight
B7 Genotype/Phenotype

DOWNLOAD from beyond the graveyard HERE!

The Pop Group ‎– "Y" (Radar Records ‎– RAD 20) 1979

To wrap up this brief sojourn into the seedy underbelly of post-punk Bristol, we end logically at the beginning, with The Pop Group's rather marvelous "Y" album.
Along with PiL's first two albums and anything by This Heat, this magical record loomed large in my teenage years. Everyone who reads this blog must be familiar with it(surely?),but it can't hurt by posting it again!? 
I hardly noticed the overbearing politics when i was a yoof, but without doubt they must have crept in by osmosis, because I'm the same kind of pain in the arse as Mark Stewart is.......but at least i recognise it and occasionally shut the fuck up!......i do describe my self as a Nihilist these days though,which is a nice cop out for me.
There are so many classic tunes on here, but what i like the best about it is they never thought twice about mangling them up completely, with the help of Brit-Dub producer Dennis 'Blackbeard' Bovell .
"We Are Time" has that classic, 'surely it had been written before' vibe that all classic tunes have.....could have been a hit if Echo and The Bunnymen had released it in its straight form; but with admirable,and fashionable for 1979, anti-commerciality, they walked the walk and rendered it unsellable.Nearly perfect in it's imperfection.....Y?.....because i say so! 

Tracklist:

She Is Beyond Good and Evil

Thief Of Fire
Snowgirl
Blood Money
Savage Sea
We Are Time
Words Disobey Me
Don't Call Me Pain
The Boys From Brazil
Don't Sell Your Dreams

3:38

DOWNLOAD Y and all the other letters of the post-punk alphabet HERE!

The Pop Group ‎– "For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?" (Rough Trade ‎– ROUGH 9, Y Records ‎– Y 2) 1980

The Pop Group's 'disappointing' second album,is in fact really good; despite some rather chaffing in-yer-face politics.
Snappy album title that, I wonder what these chaps' message to all us unenlightened worker ants is?
The Cover photo is a tactic used today by Charities,whose directors draw huge salaries, on those TV adverts voiced by millionaire actors who urge us to donate £3 a month with a background of sad piano music to manipulate our emotions.Except in this case the background music is designed to turn us into angry militants.......albeit dancing angry militants.
Its kind of patronising, and insulting.......but then again some of us need to be patronised and insulted, so fair enough.
Preaching self-righteousness aside, the music is ferocious punk-funk-dub, spat out with all the venom of a napalm attack on a village of vietnamese children.
The answer to the question?
We will continue to tolerate mass murder, because that's what the human race has always done.One day we will all realise,in all our arrogance, that we are not the chosen ones,but are merely on the top of a food chain and will do anything that maintains that position, including killing the opposition .If that means destroying ourselves then that is what we will do, clearing the way for a more successful species that can manage itself better than Homo-sapiens obviously are incapable of doing.

Tracklist:

1.Forces Of Oppression
2.Feed The Hungry
3.One Out Of Many

4.We Are All Prostitutes
5.Blind Faith
6.How Much Longer
7.Justice
8.There Are No Spectators
9.Communicate
10.Rob A Bank

DOWNLOAD and tolerate the pop group HERE!

The Cortinas ‎– "For Fucks Sake Plymouth (Live in Plymouth 1977)"

Ridiculous title aside, this is an electrified performance captured in the amphetamine charged atmosphere of 1977. This was very relevant for the year of Punk Rock, not 1976, which was the year of the Punk Rock  clique, a club basically which YOU weren't a member of; this all changed in '77 when it became inclusive.Then 1978 it became too inclusive,and the Punks/Chav's destroyed it,and they're still there today, bedecked in studded leather, jeans, boots and that fucking tired Travis Bickle inspired mohawk.Duh!
Thankfully, real Punk ideals split off into what we now call,rather unimaginatively, 'Post-Punk'; back then it was just ALL Punk to us kids.....in retrospect it definitely wasn't Punk Rock....that was crap like the UK Subs, Vice Squad, and the laughably moronic Exploited.
Anyway, enough of this boring 'Punk' analysis. Here we have some proper Punk Rock, with The Cortinas at their peak in the golden year of '77, with several unrecorded songs, on what would have made a fine debut LP. They missed the boat, like a lot of other groups from that era.

Tracklist:

1 Defiant Pose
2 Tired Of Compromise
3 They
4 We're Gonna Play In The Subway Today
5 Further Education
6 Fascist Dictator
7 Tokyo Joe
8 Gloria
9 Gonna Get Mary In The Bus Shelter
10 Have It With You
11 Television Families
12 Have It With You
13 Slow down

For Fucks sake DOWNLOAD this relic HERE!

The Cortinas ‎– "True Romances" + "Please Don't Hit Me (CBS Demo's)" (1978)

True Romances (CBS Records) 1978

A1 Heartache 4:48
A2 I Don't Really Want To Get Involved 2:20
A3 Ask Mr. Waverly 3:39
A4 Youth Club Dance 2:58
A5 First I Look At The Purse 2:28
A6 Radio Rape 3:49
B1 Tribe Of The City 3:39
B2 Have It With You 2:02
B3 I Trust Valerie Singleton 2:08
B4 Broken Not Twisted 3:01
B5 Take That Light Away 2:12
B6 Further Education 2:26
B7 I'll Keep My Distance 3:51

"Please Don't Hit Me!" (CBS DEMOs)1978

1 Tribe Of The City
2 I Don't Really Want To Get Involved
3 Youth Club Dance
4 Ask Mr. Waverley
5 Have It With You
6 Broken Not Twisted
7 Heartache
8 Radio Rape
9 Justice
10 Further Education
11 I Trust Valerie Singleton
12 First I Look At The Purse

Bristol's premier 'Punks' ,The Cortinas, were one of those few '77 punk bands that looked like kids from the street. No expensive biker jackets,swastika t-shirts and spiky haircuts for these hicks from the provinces.They also played no-frills rock'n'roll rather than the hyped up version of Rock and Bad heavy metal that was the output of the higher echelons of the genre.They even had a singer who sported a proud Quiff, how anti-fashion was that?

The record companies were running out of 'punk bands' to sign up and destroy, so, inevitably the turn of the Cortinas would come.

CBS released an LP based on the Demos they recorded to get a record deal, which was a sterile over-produced version of what had made them a viable acquisition for the label who had turned the Clash into an Adult Orientated Rock act.

Included here are both the Demo versions, and the Official versions for a contrast and compare lesson in why record companies Suck!

Its like giving your mum (or Dad) your dirty jeans to wash and receiving them back washed and ironed with a sharp crease running down the front and back of the trouser legs.

"Please Don't Hit Me" (Valarie singleton) is raw,rough and ready Pub influenced Punk Rock;whereas, "True Romances" is polished New Wave pop,expertly recorded in an acoustically dead studio.....which I have grown to actually like over the preceding 40 years.

Both versions have their plus points in 2017, but for the time, it is astonishing how unbelievably stupid record executives/producers were in 1977/8 and beyond.Punk Rock was universally misunderstood by almost everyone in the business, and these two LP's stand as a testament to that.

I suppose it's like myself producing a Hip-Hop album.....hang on...no i think i'd do a good job on that one actually....and i'd love to produce someone like that ginger bloke with the small acoustic....er...Ed Sheeran, thats it; and I wish I could have produced The Cortinas in 1978 too.

The cover is another issue. Looking through the 'New Wave' section in Revolver, Leicester, in 1978, I was looking for this album and couldn't see it.Asked the assistant and he flicked through twice and found it. It just so invisible, like when Man United played in a Grey kit and lost 3-1 against Southampton.The manager complained that they couldn't see each other. After changing the kit at half-time they still lost.......if CBS changed the cover at half-time I reckon the sales would have shadowed the fortunes of Manchester United that fateful day, and sunk without trace.

Yep big business and art don't go together, just like Footballers and brains......and the colour Grey.

DOWNLOAD a True Romance HERE!

and

DOWNLOAD a truer version of True Romances HERE!...(i.e. please don't hit me)

The Cortinas - "Sessions,Demos,and Singles 1977" (a Die or DIY? Compilation)

And who got there first in Bristol then?
'Twas 2nd wave punk band The Cortinas, which included a future member of "Cut The Crap" Clash (but we'll keep that quiet!), and a Singer with a quiff called Valentine!
More on the Pub Rock side of early Punk Rock were our Cortinas,refreshingly, keeping a clean crunchy guitar sound unlike the majority of the class of '77. Provincial Punks like this lot were rare in the early days, and to be accepted into the trendy clique was difficult; but without doubt they were one of the most competent and energetic of the New Wave crowd.This wasn't enough to survive the Seditionaries clad London fashionistas of the Kings Road.They always remained outsiders up until the rest of the Bristolian scene got the Funk on and left Punk and The Cortinas behind.
Here's a compilation I chucked together of some early Demo's, the John Peel Session, and the first two, Classic, singles, which showcase the band at their best before the Record Company got hold of them and destroyed 'em.(see the last track)

Tracklist:

01 Fascist Dictator (Single A-side 1977)
02 Television Families (Single B-side 1977)
03 Defiant Pose (Single A-Side 1977).
04 Independence (Single B-Side 1977).
05 Having It (Peel Session - 16-07-1977)
06 Further Education (Peel Session -.16-07-1977)
07 Defiant Pose (Peel Session - 16-07-1977)
08 Television Families (Peel Session - 16-07-1977)
09 Tribe of the City (Demo).
10 I Don't Really Want to Get Involved (Demo)
11 Youth Club Dance (Demo)
12 Mr Waverley (Demo).
13 Having It (Demo).
14 Broken Not Twisted (Demo).
15 Heartache (7" single version 1978.)

DOWNLOAD punk from before bristol got the funk HERE!

Mark Stewart and the Maffia ‎– Learning To Cope With Cowardice" (On-U Sound ‎– ON-U L.P. 24) 1983

There are times when I think that anybody with an opinion shouldn't be allowed in front of a microphone,even worse, in front of a microphone connected to a P.A. system. Politicians are bad enough, but pop stars who think they are politicians,or even, a....gulp!... leader(!?), are far worse.Its a kind of fascism to be screamed at at high volume with no right to reply in a crowd all with the same opinion and dress sense......sound like anything we encountered before,like in Nuremberg for  example?
Having heard about some 'street' accented ginger bird 'tellin' us like it is' at the annual Glastonbury middle class convention, called Kate Tempest (uh?) last weekend.I thought i'd check this rant out on youtube (click here if you ain't seen it). Her scowling Brits academy face turning pink with the strain of projecting her spittle soaked views on how terrible things are. Like one was trapped in a corner being shouted at by a ruddy faced hairdryer. .....yeah I sort of agree with her,but whats the point in that? If she'd have done the same at the local Conservative club she'd have been bottled off the stage. Preaching to the converted was never anything more than a pointless exercise in futility. She don't look a barrel of laffs either.
I used to think the same of Mark Stewart until i saw him on that BBC documentary on Post-Punk, and he seemed like a rather lighthearted and amusing fellow.
The constant barrage of Politics was a major reason that the Pop Group split up.....he just never gave it a rest.He was never going to convert anyone.Those who bought (Yes they sold things,Ma Thatcher would have approved) Pop Group records were already either going to be leaning in that direction politically, or, completely apolitical. An occasional change in subject matter would have strengthened his message tenfold. Really I don't care what an artists Political opinion is,especially if they hammer the same nail for decades......change the fucking record please?.....or in Kate Tempest's case,please don't enter my world again.
On a more interesting subject, "Learning To Cope With Cowardice" is classic abstract inter-racial Dub,that within its existence, conveys a much stronger message than any barked rant. The ironic version of 'Jerusalem' is a fine example of how political music should be; subtly subverting a 'Last night of the Proms' classic, reclaiming it from the Hooray Henry's and giving back to the people it was written for, the serfs of feudal Britain. Very appropriate in this new era of debt driven neo-feudalism that we are trapped inside.......Yes I agree with Mark Stewart on ALL his points(If you're interested???....I wouldn't if I was you!), but I don't like being preached at, even if I am one of the converted.

Tracklist:
1.Learning To Cope With Cowardice
2.Liberty City
3.Blessed Are Those Who Struggle
4.None Dare Call It Conspiracy
5.Don't You Ever Lay Down Your Arms
6.The Paranoia Of Power
7.To Have A Vision
8.Jerusalem

Learn to cope with DOWNLOADING a rar file HERE!

Pigbag ‎– "Dr Heckle And Mr Jive" (Y Records ‎– Y 17) 1982

This blog of late has been getting into some pretty unhealthy, populist, 'Dance' orientated areas!.....I blame that bloody bunch of hippity-doodie commies 'The Pop Group'; especially as all their members seemed to crop up somewhere in all these groups.....Pigbag being no exception; as original bassist, Simon Underwood was to be seen doing that dancing with the bass thing, that all white boys felt obliged to indulge in from the Ska boom onwards.......YOU WILL ENJOY YORSELF!
One thing I can't stand is enforced jollity.
Mr Underwood also holds the undisputed honour of being the only member of The Pop Group to ever be on a Hit record..... "Papa's Got a Brand New Pigbag", thanks to Mr Paul 'N-n-n-n-n-Nineteen' Hardcastle's punchy remix (included here); and they also got to do Top Of The Pops twice! 
Saving street cred stories were later heard about how naughty they were in the BBC studio's, making the director very very angry.......Oh those anti-capitalist Anarcho-socialists eh!?......just a pity that their need for success ran roughshod over their 'principles'.......but at least they could prance around on telly with their trumpets I suppose.
That said, they made a couple of well funky brass heavy tunes that can even get my Anti-Capitalist Anarcho-socialist toes-a-tapping.

Tracklist

Dr Heckle:

1- Getting Up
2- Big Bag
3- Dozo Don
4- Brian The Snail

Mr Jive:

5- Wiggling
6- Brazil Nuts
7- Orangutango
8- As It Will Be

Bonus Tracks:

9 - Papa's Got a Brand New Pigbag (12" version)

10- Sunny Day (12" version)

11- Papa's Got a Brand New Pigbag (Paul Hardcastle remix)

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Maximum Joy - "Station M.X.J.Y.,plus Singles and Peel Session" (Y Records)1981/1982

Bristol 'super group' formed by a coming together of the Glaxo Babies and ex-Pop Group members among other right-on Bristolians.
They produced a strain of inoffensive white-boy experimental jazz funk with a post-punk edge......this edge was completely removed for their solitary album "Station M.X.J.Y", which could have been mistaken for one of those smooth Acid Jazz groops from the late eighties, like The Brand New Heavies and stuff like that.....although without that awful club culture awfulness. It was around 1982 that some short-lived Jazz-dance craze sprung up in the UK, spawning chart acts like Matt Bianco, and Blue Rondo a la Turk. Early Maximum Joy, were nothing to do with that trend however, and the early singles were rather magnificent.In fact we could be more than satisfied with just "Stretch" and "Building Bridges" from this selection,but The john peel session is suitably experimental so as not to alienate their fanbase before they got far too funky for 'em the following year.
Ah, bless 'em, they probably wanted a lickle 'hit'......a common graveyard for a legion of alternative musicians over the years.

What's in this RAR file then?:

1. Stretch (12") 1981

A Stretch (Discomix / Rap)6:09
B Silent Street / Silent Dub 7:53

2. White and Green Place (12") 1982

A White And Green Place (Extraterrestial Mix) 5:27
B Building Bridges / Building Dub  6:19

3. In The Air (7") 1982

A In The Air 3:32

4. Peel Session 12-09-1981:

1. Caveman Fly
2. Open Your Heart
3. Slip Into The Fit

5. "Station M.X.J.Y." (Album Y records Y28) 1982

A1 Dancing On My Boomerang
A2 Do It Today
A3 Let It Take You There
A4 Searching For A Feeling
B1 Where's Deke?
B2 Temple Bomb Twist
B3 Mouse An' Me
B4 All Wrapped Up!

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Don Cherry ‎– "Brown Rice" (EMI ‎– 3C 064-18107) 1975

Now a chance to post something different.
Of course Neneh Cherry, of Rip Rig + Panic's step dad was Jazz legend Don Cherry; who also played the good bits on the "I am Cold" album.
So you gotta be curious as to what he got up to in his long career haven't you.....what d'you mean 'No'!?
Here's Don's obscure seventies Jazz Fusion masterpiece that is 'Brown Rice'.A kind of laid back ,post-jazz world fusion experiment from the lost year of 1975.When all us 'white kids' were being tortured by ELP and Yes.Black music never seems to have a bad year(depending on taste; which,according to Mark Stewart of The Pop Group '...is a form of censorship').If you dig deep enough there hasn't really been a bad year since about 1966 in pop music, even further in the Avant Garde and Jazz..........jeez I'm being generous today!
Normal service will be resumed on the next post.......or maybe start right away.....Is it me or is everything SHIT!?

Tracklist:
Brown Rice 5:14
Malkauns 13:59
Chenrezig 12:50
Degi-Degi 7:05

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Rip Rig + Panic - "I Am Cold" (Virgin Records) 1982

The Pop Group spin-off ,Rip Rig + Panic's slightly more controlled and structured follow up to the massive financial flop "God".Somehow they managed to persuade trumpet maestro Don Cherry to add a bit of class to augment his step Daughters' whiny vocals.

Basically it's more of the same anything goes kind of trendy dubby jazz-punk fusion but with less wild abandon of the first LP.

Again, Virgin give them the double vinyl treatment, which ensured that they lost even more money in the vane hope that they could find the next Sex Pistols or Mike Oldfield to finance Branson's greater ambitions.

Tracklist:
North Side
1 Hunger (The Ocean Roars It Bites) 3:00
2 Epi Epi Arp Woosh! 4:00
3 Another Tampon Up The Arse Of Humanity 4:00
4 Misa Luba Lone Wolf 3:06
East Side
5 Storm The Reality Asylum 4:00
6 Here Gathers Nameless Energy (Volcanoes Covered By Snow) 4:20
7 A Dog's Secret 1:30
8 Liars Shape Up Or Ship Out 2:00
South Side
9 Warm; To The If In Life 4:30
10 Nurse Increase The Sedatives (The Torment's No Better) 4:15
11 Take A Don Key To Mystery 4:00
West Side
12 Tax Sex 5:00
13 Subversive Wisdom 5:00
14 Fire Eyes Joyful Silent Tears 4:10

Bonus:

15 You're My Kind Of Climate (7" single)

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Rip Rig + Panic ‎– "God" ( Virgin ‎– V 2213, Uh Huh Prods ‎– V2213)

The Pop Group splintered into many pieces, none greater than the whole.
The very trendy Rip Rig And Panic(Jazzy namedrop number 1;nicked from Roland Kirk), featured Sager and Smith from the aforementioned Pop Group, plus keyboard hanger on Mark Springer, and future International Pop Star Neneh Cherry.
Thinking they were getting a poppier version of The Pop Group, Virgin Records signed them as quick as shit off a stick.......someone must have got the sack after Richard Branson heard this.
It does,however, sound like a bunch of pretentious ,and very recent Jazz Record fans shut in a room with instruments, a tape recorder, and some Tequila ,and told how fantastic they were.
The ,admittedly, lovely Neneh Cherry's whiney voice being particularly rasping on the delicate bones of the inner ear.
Whenever 'Jazz' becomes absorbed into Pop music, there is always a sense of annoying elitism treading water within the 'we are cooler than you' grooves. Someone bought some of those marked down Archie Shepp records from the eclectic record shop in downtown Bristol to leave lying around their squat........what music do you like?.........Moi?...I like Jaaaaaaazzzzzz, y'dig?
Oh...OK......I 'dig' Jazz too, but i'm not so far up my own arse as to not realise I feel slightly more sophisticated when i'm playing an Albert Ayler album than one by A Flock of Seagulls.......I know which one i'd prefer to be listening to most of the time......that's right, A Flock Of Seagulls, Ayler gets right on my tits. Neneh's dad, Don Cherry, happens to have made some rather great fusion records, and even appears on Rip Rig + Panic's second LP. 
I'm a big fan of the epoch when Jazz embraced rock, the Fusion era of Miles Davis,which was an evolution  rather than when Rock embraced Jazz, or worse, when 'Pop' embraced Jazz, which was motivated by a lack of idea's;so they steal from the past rather than look towards a future.
I hated this record when I bought it.....but as so often happens after a gap of thirty years it sounds fresh, wild and exciting.......now I thinks its very great(despite the fucking annoying people on spliff humour). I'm so fickle ain't I?

Tracklist:

Red Side
Constant Drudgery Is Harmful To Soul, Spirit & Health 3:24
Wilhelm Show Me The Diagram (Function Of The Orgasm) 1:10
Through Nomad Eyeballs 3:28
Change Your Life 3:01
Yellow Side
Knee Deep In Shit 3:30
Totally Naked (Without Lock Or Key) 1:54
Try Box Out Of This Box 2:34
Need (De School You) 1:32
Green Side
Howl! Caged Bird 3:30
Those Eskimo Women Speak Frankly 3:13
The Blue Blue Third 5:25
Blue Side
Shadows Only There Because Of The Sun 2:41
Beware (Our Leaders Love The Smell Of Napalm) 1:51
Miss Pib 1:34
It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Brrod 2:58

Bonus Tracks:

Bob Hope Takes Risks (7" Version)3:53

Go, Go, Go! (This Is It)2:19

The Ultimate In Fun (Is Going To The Disco With My Baby)2:30

Hey Mr E! A Gran Grin With A Shake Of Smile5:11

Billy Eckstein's Shirt Collar3:22

Bob Hope Takes Risks (12" Version)7:01

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Shoes For Industry - "Singles,Sessions,and Live 1979-81" (a Die or DIY? Compilation)

This lot take me back to the Actors in groups discussion we indulged in during the Punishment Of Luxury posts; for Shoes For Industry,as well as having a similar style of moniker, they were the 'house band' of the Crystal Theatre in Bristol. At least singer Paul Bassett Davies trod the boards, and was a regular at the Edinburgh Fringe, as well as a comedy script writer for radio, and now writes funny books too.His voice has that dodgy Spherical Objects, Deep Freeze Mice quality, that could be annoying,but as the lyrics are so good, remarkably, i am the very opposite of annoyed (unusual for me).Another theatre connection is their group name, which was taken from a 'Firesign Theatre' routine.
In fact,this bunch sound like very entertaining chaps indeed;in all departments,great tunes, funny,intelligent lyrics,and backed by Bristol's version of the Blockheads.
Barely had they poked there heads above water when they disappeared from view...never to reform again.Something a lot of far worse groups have failed to achieve in recent times, to disastrous effect! 
Here we have their two excellent singles,and their sole Peel Session, along with a live soundboard recorded live bootleg from Berlin!?

Tracklist:

1-Devil Dogs (Peel Session 10-09-1979)
2-War Of The Potatoes (Peel Session 10-09-1979)
3-Shell Shock (Peel Session 10-09-1979)
4-Fear Of Wages (Peel Session 10-09-1979)
5-Falling In Love Again (Single a-side 1979)
6-Laughing Song (Single B-Side 1979)
7-Spend (Single A-Side 1980)
8-Sheepdog Trial inna Babylon (Single B-Side 1980)
9-Fathers Trousers (Live in Berlin 1980)
10-Slave Of Love (Live in Berlin 1980)
11-3 Tons Now (Live in Berlin 1980)
12-Imaginary Boogie Doll (Live in Berlin 1980)
13-Sheepdog Trial Inna Babylon (Live in Berlin 1980)

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Shoes For Industry ‎– "Talk Like A Whelk" (Fried Egg Records ‎– FRY1) 1980

The most boring band I ever saw live came from Bristol.......no it wasn't "Shoes For Industry"; I'm talking about the dreadful Massive Attack.
Shoes For Industry are the very opposite of Massive Attack; talented tune-smiths who write their own stuff instead of nicking it,and can actually perform it, and, most importantly,they have a sense of humour. You never saw these chaps pictured in half light looking mean and moody with a backdrop of recent technology; taking oneself too seriously isn't an attractive quality, especially if you're a boring fucker.
I suspected the lead singer,Paul Bassett Davies, was a frustrated comedian, and lo and behold he seems to have carved out a reasonably successful career for himself as a comedy script writer and novelist.Even winning....gulp...'awards'!?
However the award he is winning this evening, as one of Shoes For Industry, is in the third best band from Bristol ever, category, in which they beat Massive Attack by at least a couple of hundred places.
No doubt there will be persons in the comments section telling me how fantastic 'Blue Lines' is? Well don't bother 'cus you're wrong!
There are few songs to rival "Invasion Of The French Boyfriends" for satirising European stereotypes, both in its accurate description of the swarthy French libertine, and the British sense of inadequacy in the realms of romance. All this and managing to be genuinely funny too, an art-form that seldom achieves its goal.
There are plenty of clever and funny moments hidden in the lyrics of this, their sole long player.I'm rather fond of "The War Of The Potatoes".......who won that war? I hear you ask......I don't know!....I'm paraphrasing again, so download the album and find out.
It's definitely NOT boring!

Tracklist:

A1 The War Of The Potatoes
A2 Fear Of Wages
A3 Invasion Of The French Boyfriends
A4 Jerusalem
A5 Depilation
A6 Shell Shock
B1 Violent Stabbing With A Knife
B2 The Changeling featuring Devil Dogs and Slave Of Love
B3 Talk Like A Whelk

DOWNLOAD it you whelk HERE!