Where's the Beach - Peel Sessions (1989-92)

After the release of the track Tripping the LUV Fantastic for the Freak Beats compilation, John Peel got in touch and booked Where's the Beach - Peter Jones and Adam Marshall - for a first session, which was recorded on August 1st 1989 at Maida Vale Studios, with Dale Griffin producin and Mick Robinson engineering. Chloe Mac was on vocals. At the time the band only had three number, which clashed with the four-number format of a Radio One Session. Jones and Marshall wanted to record a version of the Cabaret Voltaire classic Nag Nag Nag but Dale Griffin cut the session short and only three tracks were recorded, namely the two songs from Freak Beats (Tripping The Love Fantastic, Deliciously Deranged) and a version of their soon-to-be first single Suakin (pronounced Sue-R-Kin). Peel loved the session and played it three times once being in his best-of-the-year round-up in December. Rumours have it that WTB never regained the raw energy that was captured on that session, mainly due to the equipment not being very good and slack midi timings caused by connecting things up incorrectly. The session aired on Augusr 31st, 1989.

Exactly one year later, after the release of the band's first single (Suakin), John Peel booked again the band for a second session (of which he said: "I can't understand why this band aren't what you kids call MEGA"). Marshall, Jones and vocalist Angie Summons on August 19th recorded three tracks (Feed The Fire, Chaos At The Axe Factory (Inst),Mega Armagedron Death / Yankamantra) which then aired on September 26th.

The third session for John Peel was recorded after the release of their third single (Sex Slave Zombie), in 1992. On October 11th Jones and Marshall gathered ay Maida Vale Studios, this time with Mike Engles producing and Andrew Rogers angineering, and recorded four new tracks (Unstoppable, Sex Slave Zombie Part Two, Oasis, Pop Killer). This session was finally aired on December 4th 1992.

trippin the luv fantastic (peel)

third peel

(Thanks to Angie for the pic!!)

Where’s the Beach - Some Recordings (1989-92)

Where's The Beach were formed in late 1987 in Liverpool when two ex-students working on synths and samples out of an attic on Canning St., Pete Jones and Adam Marshall (also with Elliptical Trampolines, Frontiers of Chaos, Cindy and the Barbie Dolls, Flaccid Botulists Incorperated and Machine Age Voodoo) first heard the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu's ‘The Queen and I’. Jones and Marshall soon enlisted Chloe Mac on vocals, playing their first Liverpool gig in the Jacoranda Club on 3rd February 1989.

The band got their first big break when Radio Lancashire's seminal On The Wire radio show played all the tracks from the bands first porta-studio demo. Alison Martin of Scam Records heard the tracks and got the band to supply two songs for the Freak Beats compilation. Since all other bands on the album provided only one number, one of the songs by Where's The Beach, Deliciously Deranged, was credited to The Elliptical Trampolines, (or the Convoluted Pullovers as John Peel called them). The bands looked destined for the big time after having their other Freak Beats track, Tripping The LUV Fantastic (aka Trippin the Love Fantastic, as credited on the LP cover), broadcast on daytime Radio Ones' Newsbeat program.

WTB got a gig at the 'Greetings' Festival Festival in Florence, Italy supporting The Residents. Things went badly and Chloe Mac left the band as soon as the gig finished. When they arrived back in the UK the band began the search for a new singer. In the end Angie Sammons was recruited.

In 1990 the band quickly put together enough tracks to make up a mini LP and recorded it in a small studio in Liverpool (the tracks were Suakin, Feed The Fire, Tripping The LUV Fantastic, Swallow Me, No Liberty, Metal Machine). Most of the songs were not considered good enough, so a 12 inch single was released instead containing Suakin, Feed The Fire, Tripping The LUV Fantastic. The single gained absolutely ecstatic reviews in Music Week and Sounds. Music Week described it as "the first proper acid crossover record" and Sounds stated quite categorically that "This band are going to be massive". The band also recorded Suakin for an appearance on Granada TV.

At around that time Sammons left the group. ('WTB were writing mainly instrumentals when I went away [...] and I had only about three numbers to do on a gig, so it was just an evolution really. I didn't say, I'm leaving, they didn't say you're going.'). Nonetheless WTB were soon hard at work, releasing a second single, Primeval Goddess (backed with Liberty and a re-recorded version of Deliciously Deranged).

In 1992 they released their third single Sex Slave Zombie (containing Sex Slave Zombie 1 and 2,  Minutes to Bomb (Live) and Kaos at the Axe Factory), which was single of the week in NME.

In the mid-nineties the band provided the song LA (Drudge Nation) for the LP Evening We Are Not The Fall, and later released the cassette Sous les PAves, la Plage (containing among others Manta Ray, Malibu Stacey Theme, Zoner, Universe, Bodfar, Yankamantra).

trippin the love fantastic

primeval goddess

(see also:

http://www.myspace.com/wheresthebeachmusic

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~adamm/personal/wtb/wtbhomep.htm )

Crikey, it’s the Cromptons! - Head on the Block (1990)

Tony Chestnut (aka Crompton, to whom I’m personally very grateful), the singer and song-writer with Crikey, it’s the Cromptons!  recalls his time with the band as follows: ‘Both times we made a record we split up shortly afterwards which was a shame. But we did get to play Uni London union with the Bodines and Lpool Uni with Weather Prophets as well as often with Jactars in the limited venues Lpool had in late 80s and once supported by a young Boo Radleys whom I  later became tour manager for. We had a successful tour of Germany. A couple of live sessions on Roger Hill Radio Merseyside. [We] were the subject of a book Rock music in Lpool by Sara Cohen. Had a few revues in music press and one article in Melody Maker but eluded the attention we may have deserved.’

‘I recall our first big gig at U.L.U London Uni Union with Mighty Mighty and the Bodines. The place was packed, we were being really well received then I swapped over my guitar to an acoustic for a couple of numbers only to get electrocuted thru the microphone and my teeth!  And be total out of tune. We struggled for what felt like forever to tune up but it was so hot and with new strings it was hopeless and ended in chaos. But the Bodines really liked us and kindly got us up on stage to do two Velvet Underground numbers with them as their encore. We ended up selling a lot of our albums and T shirts that nite I was lucky to be wearing rubber soled Doc Martens. And made sure all my gear was earthed after that near death experience.

‘At another gig, this time in Berlin' The Kob' the audience kept asking us to play faster, as that was one of our specialities and it became so frenetic! Usually we'd stick to our set list, but this was our second nite playing the same venue so we went with it but had to play the set twice as we played a 45 min set in 20 mins as so blisteringly fast, but no one seemed to notice, as they kept asking for more.’ 

After the split that followed the release of their first Mini-LP (Mouthing Off, 1989, see relevant post), Crikey, it’s the Cromptons! got back together again in late 1989. This time the line-up included Tony Crompton (vocals, rhythm guitar, former Cardboard Cutouts, Zyloids, Crompton Vest Band, Jades), Dave Treble (lead guitar), Paul Scott (bass) and Andy Delamere (drums).

The following year the band recorded at Out of the Blue Studio in Manchester the second LP, produced by Nick Garside

Head on the Block (1990)

- Pillow

- Head on the Block

- They Got

- U.S.E.D

- Senses

- Stimulate

- Share the Kiss

- Ready or not

- Clamber on

- Overload

Shortly after the release of the LP, the band split up, this time for good.

head on the block

(Again, thanks to Tony for all the help, info and audio material)

Crikey, it’s the Cromptons! - Mouthing Off (1988)

Crikey, it’s the Cromptons! formed in 1985. The earliest line-up included Ian Travis and Dave Morgan of the Jades (later Jactars), along with Tony Crompton (aka Tony Crompton Vest, Tony Chesnut) and Huw Williams (later Jactars). Tony Lonorgan, of the Jactars, suggested Midi (with whom he was in the gospel band Pieces of Glass)  and Karen (with him co-member of La Voix Celeste) to join the Cromptons. 

This is how Tony Crompton described the band in 1985: ‘We have a powerful jazzy-pop-dischord-new sound-crazy sax-sound. We’re not the typical Mersey band. The band is a result of many years of different experiments and ideas I’ve had musically’. At the time (1985-86) the line-up was indicated as consisting of Tony Crompton Vest (guitar, vocals), Midi the Magnanimous (bass), Di Wagstaff (sax, trumpet, vocals), Reg Crikey (drums), Henry Spencer (former Jactars, guitars). Apparently this line-up is responsible for the band’s first six-track self-titled demo (May 1985).

‘The early bands of Tony, Trav, Dave, and Co. were different from the Jactars and Crikey it’s the Cromptons! They comprised a group of friends with a common interest in music who had been influenced by ‘punk rock’ and its ‘do-it-yourself’ philosophy and began making music together in each other’s houses in groups of fluctuating membership that went under a variety of different names. Their music-making was thus unstructured, experimental, improvisational, and was taken less seriously than that of later years. It was a preoccupation − or ‘self-indulgence’ as Tony described it − rather than an occupation, and their few public performances were usually relaxed, taking place in church halls or youth clubs. Unlike many young people living on the Wirral whose bands dissolved when they went to college or got married, members of the Jactars and Crikey it’s the Cromptons! progressed from band to band, gaining more experience with each and becoming gradually more committed and ambitious about their music-making, moving on to bands with fixed membership and name’ (Sarah Cohen, Rock Culture in Liverpool, 27)

The first stable line-up included Tony Crompton (vocals, rhythm guitar, former Cardboard Cutouts, Zyloids, Crompton Vest Band, Jades), Dave Treble (lead guitar), Pete McPartland (bass, former Pieces of Glass, Third Man, later Jactars, Rash), Huw Williams (drums, The Big I Am, Jactars). This line-up recorded the track (Food for Feet)  the band provided for the Vulcan compilation Ways to Wear Coats (1987) and is responsible for the band’s first vinyl release, a six track 12″ EP Mouthing Off (1988)

 

 Mouthing OFF (1988)

- Nicely Smelling

- Starfish (on Seagrass)

- Hey it's the Chicks

- Mad Geek / Magique the Magnanimous

- Colder Parts

- Vegetable

The songs were recorded at Out of the Blue Studio, Manchester, and was produced by Nick Garside. Soon after the release of the first record, the band split up for some time.

mouthing off

(Thanks to our friend Tony, Roger and Jane)