Cavity – First Communion / Figurative Theatre / Burnt Offerings / Mysterium Iniquitatis / Dream For Mother

Stairs – Uncertain Journey / Spiritual Cramp / Romeo’s Distress / Resurrection – Sixth Communion / Prayer

Halloween is upon us tonight so thought I would upload the debut LP on Frontier Records by California’s uber Death Rock Goths, Christian Death. Dark, theatrical and moody - this LP kicks most of the UK ‘gothic’ band’s material that was around in 1982, well into touch. Hello to Mike and Lena from Post Punk Tribe, reckon those two would like this post!

Text ripped from da wikki…45 Grave and the compilation LP ‘Hell Comes To Your House’ that are mentioned in the text below, are uploaded on this site somewhere if you search for them. Halloween text courtesy of beyond the grave.

Rozz Williams founded Christian Death in October 1979, at the age of 16, with bassist James McGearty, drummer George Belanger and guitarist Jay. The band name was a satirical play on words derived from the designer brand Christian Dior. The first Christian Death performance in front of a live audience was at a Castration Squad gig in 1980, when Castration Squad invited Christian Death on stage to play a couple songs. In 1980 and 1981, the band played many shows with 45 Grave, another L.A. deathrock group, though they also played shows with punk bands like Social Distortion and The Adolescents.

Despite being in the same area as the emerging West Coast hardcore movement, by the beginning of the 1980s, the group were not happy with the local scene, especially the crowd that liked Black Flag and the Circle Jerks, given the crowd’s penchant for becoming punks after punk became popular, and beating up hippies, when only a few years before much of that audience hated punk rock and beat up punks. Christian Death dismissed the followers of this movement as “hillbilly punks” in an interview.

In February 1981, the band went on hiatus. Williams concentrated on a side project with Ron Athey called Premature Ejaculation, but Christian Death got back together that summer with guitarist Rikk Agnew (formerly of The Adolescents) replacing Jay. A compilation album featuring several local punk and deathrock acts called Hell Comes to Your House was released in 1981. The track that Christian Death contributed, “Dogs”, came from studio sessions financed by McGearty. The songs from those sessions would be released in France as the Deathwish EP three years later.

Their appearance on the Hell Comes to Your House compilation helped to get Christian Death signed to Frontier Records, which released their debut album Only Theatre of Pain in March 1982. This album featured deathrock anthems such as “Spiritual Cramp” and “Romeo’s Distress”. In England, despite the album’s initially limited availability, Only Theatre of Pain would have a strong influence on many gothic rock groups who had come after Bauhaus appeared, including Sex Gang Children and Death Cult, the latter of which was the precursor to The Cult.

Drug use and internal fighting started to lead to the band’s decay. By late 1982, George Belanger and Rikk Agnew were gone from the band and were replaced by Eva Ortiz on guitar (she had previously taken part in Only Theatre of Pain as a backing vocalist) and a new drummer, Rod “China” Figueroa from Oxnard, California. After their first gig with a local band called “Pompeii 99″ and their regular support band Psicom, the first band of Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction, Michael Montano replaced Eva on guitar. Johnnie Sage (Ammentorp, The Joneses, The Mau-Maus) on second guitar, completed the new line-up. It was not to last. Williams didn’t like the “Punk Rock & Roll” influence China and Johnnie Sage brought to the band. Although demo recording continued with McGearty, the sessions known among band members as “The Last Gasp,” Williams distanced himself from the project. Christian Death and Pompeii 99 had planned to tour together in Europe, occasioned by the continental release of Only Theatre of Pain on French label L’Invitation au Suicide, and then Japan, but by the end of 1982, Christian Death had broken up.

An idol of early American goth-rock fans, Christian Death founder Rozz Williams hanged himself on April Fool’s Day 1998 in his West Hollywood apartment. He was 34.

The forefather to artists such as Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor, Williams recorded the first Christian Death album, Only Theatre of Pain, at age 16. He worked on five albums with the death rock band before 1985, when he backed out of the group for personal reasons.

“He left the band for the same reason he left life: love situations,” said Valor Kand, a former Christian Death band mate who took over as lead singer and copyrighted the band’s name after Williams’ departure.

Born Roger Allen Painter on Nov. 6, 1963, the flamboyant singer was raised in Pamona, Calif., by two born-again Christian parents. Williams battled alcohol and heroin addiction since his mid-teens, and perpetually struggled with his overt bisexuality and androgyny, Kand said.

“He was a manic depressive,” he said. “There have been more times than I could count that I have yanked razor blades from his hands and ropes from around his neck, and stopped him from killing other people with knives. I think this was the way he wanted to go, it was his destiny.”

A tarot card titled “The Hangman is a Fool” was reportedly discovered near Williams’ body by his roommate and musical collaborator Ryan Gaumer last Wednesday. Williams left no suicide note, but Kand said he believed heartbreak and alcohol played a large part in his death.

However, Bruce Duff, who worked closely with Williams at Triple X Records, said his suicide came as a complete surprise.

“I saw the guy 10 days before he died and he was laughing and having a great time,” Duff said. “Obviously there was something wrong. Rozz had a tendency to not think his actions all of the way through.”

During the early 1990s, Williams performed with alternative hard rockers Shadow Project and Premature Ejaculation before launching an eclectic solo career. Within the last few years he had released a bluesy cabaret album with singer Gitane Demone called Dream Home Heartache, as well as Whorses’ Mouth and Every King a Bastard Son, two brooding spoken-word albums inspired by his personal and musical hero, David Bowie.

At the time of his death, Williams was awaiting the release of From the Heart, the next Shadow Project album due out this month, and organizing a hard rock band with Triple X Records.

Halloween history and traditions

Halloween, celebrated each year on October 31, is a mix of ancient Celtic practices, Catholic and Roman religious rituals and European folk traditions that blended together over time to create the holiday we know today. Straddling the line between fall and winter, plenty and paucity and life and death, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition. Halloween has long been thought of as a day when the dead can return to the earth, and ancient Celts would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off these roaming ghosts. The Celtic holiday of Samhain, the Catholic Hallowmas period of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day and the Roman festival of Feralia all influenced the modern holiday of Halloween. In the 19th century, Halloween began to lose its religious connotation, becoming a more secular community-based children’s holiday. Although the superstitions and beliefs surrounding Halloween may have evolved over the years, as the days grow shorter and the nights get colder, people can still look forward to parades, costumes and sweet treats to usher in the winter season.

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain.

The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.

During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of “bobbing” for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints’ Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints’, All Saints’, and All Souls’, were called Hallowmas.

Halloween has always been a holiday filled with mystery, magic and superstition. It began as a Celtic end-of-summer festival during which people felt especially close to deceased relatives and friends. For these friendly spirits, they set places at the dinner table, left treats on doorsteps and along the side of the road and lit candles to help loved ones find their way back to the spirit world.

Today’s Halloween ghosts are often depicted as more fearsome and malevolent, and our customs and superstitions are scarier too. We avoid crossing paths with black cats, afraid that they might bring us bad luck. This idea has its roots in the Middle Ages, when many people believed that witches avoided detection by turning themselves into cats. We try not to walk under ladders for the same reason. This superstition may have come from the ancient Egyptians, who believed that triangles were sacred; it also may have something to do with the fact that walking under a leaning ladder tends to be fairly unsafe. And around Halloween, especially, we try to avoid breaking mirrors, stepping on cracks in the road or spilling salt.

But what about the Halloween traditions and beliefs that today’s trick-or-treaters have forgotten all about? Many of these obsolete rituals focused on the future instead of the past and the living instead of the dead. In particular, many had to do with helping young women identify their future husbands and reassuring them that they would someday, with luck, by next Halloween, be married.

In 18th-century Ireland, a matchmaking cook might bury a ring in her mashed potatoes on Halloween night, hoping to bring true love to the diner who found it. In Scotland, fortune-tellers recommended that an eligible young woman name a hazelnut for each of her suitors and then toss the nuts into the fireplace. The nut that burned to ashes rather than popping or exploding, the story went, represented the girl’s future husband. (In some versions of this legend, confusingly, the opposite was true: The nut that burned away symbolized a love that would not last.) Another tale had it that if a young woman ate a sugary concoction made out of walnuts, hazelnuts and nutmeg before bed on Halloween night, she would dream about her future husband. Young women tossed apple-peels over their shoulders, hoping that the peels would fall on the floor in the shape of their future husbands’ initials; tried to learn about their futures by peering at egg yolks floating in a bowl of water; and stood in front of mirrors in darkened rooms, holding candles and looking over their shoulders for their husbands’ faces.

Other rituals were more competitive. At some Halloween parties, the first guest to find a burr on a chestnut-hunt would be the first to marry; at others, the first successful apple-bobber would be the first down the aisle. 

Another day with connections to Halloween is Guy Fawkes Day, celebrated on November 5. Guy Fawkes was a Roman Catholic who planned to blow up the Protestant House of Parliament on November 5, 1606; luckily for the House, he was apprehended and executed. Afterwards, the anniversary of the day was celebrated by building straw effigies, entreating passersby for “a penny for the Guy”, and finally burning “the Guys” in bonfires.

By the time I discovered punk with ‘White Riot’ in 1977, I had soaked up a fair bit of previous counter-culture history and music. History never really repeats itself, but as Nic has commented many times on these pages, sub-cultures and counter- cultures seem to have a recurring arc or trajectory, rising up then falling back to earth with a crash. There is a bit of such an arc here, although for dramatic effect I will start  like this:

Look what’s happening on the streets
Gotta revolution got to revolution

We are all outlaws in the eyes of amerika
In order to survive we steal cheat lie forge fuck hide and deal
We are obscene lawless hideous dangerous dirty violent and young

All your private property is
Target for your enemy
And your enemy is
We

We are forces of chaos and anarchy
Everything they say we are we are
And we are very
Proud of ourselves

Up against the wall
Up against the wall motherfucker
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls

And the human name
Doesn’t mean shit to a tree

All from Jefferson Airplane’s 1969 ‘Volunteers of America’ .There is a live clip (only 3.37) of the band playing ‘Volunteers’ here 

But it wasn’t the Airplane’s revolutionary rhetoric that first got me interested in the band. It was their reputation for excess of a rather different kind, which I discovered in the school library of all places. It must have been early 1974 and I had been reading my way through every interesting book in Kirkcudbright Academy library when I found one about rock’ n’ roll. How It got their I will never know, but there it was so I read it. Discussing cutting edge rock, the author reckoned that the best ‘acid rock’ album was ‘After Bathing at Baxters’ by Jefferson Airplane and explained how the group had spent the summer of love (1967) in San Francisco taking lots of LSD and then going into the studio and experimenting with psychedelic sounds to produce a masterpiece – far superior to the Beatles ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’. Far out!

So I got a copy Easter 1974 and over a few hot sunny days played it over and over again. Even without the aid of any form of drug, it sounded amazing, the music just soared and flew out of the speakers. It still does sound amazing and the music still soars.

I have replaced the 1974 vintage vinyl with a cd copy. This gives a bit more background to the recording. The band did not spend all their time in the studio. They were managed by Bill Graham and he insisted they  played gigs every weekend , whilst recording during the week. This was  unlike the Beatles who had become a studio only group by the time they recorded ‘Sgt Peppers’.

The previous Airplane album was ‘Surrealistic Pillow’. It had been recorded in 13 days in 1966 and sold a million copies, staying in the top 5 of the US album charts through the summer of 1966. The singles ‘Somebody to Love’ and ‘White Rabbit’ had been top ten hits. Both are now pop classics.

No doubt getting bored with having to belt out White Rabbit yet again every weekend, the Airplane wanted to do something different, to make an experimental uncommerical record. So Grace Slick (a psychedelic Siouxsie) wrote a song inspired by James Joyce’s Ulysses called ‘Re-Joyce’. Here are part of the lyrics:

There, are, so many of you.
White shirt and tie, white shirt and tie,
white shirt and tie, wedding ring, wedding ring.

Mulligan stew for Bloom,
the only Jew in the room
Saxon’s sick on the holy dregs
and their constant getting throw up on his leg.

Molly’s gone to blazes,
Boylan’s crotch amazes
any woman whose husband sleeps with his head
all buried down at the foot of his bed.

And here is the song itself 

I still rate ‘After Bathing at Baxter’s’ as one of the best records of  all time. Although if you just read lyrics like these:

If you were a bird and you lived very high,
You’d lean on the wind when the breeze came by,
You’d say to the wind as it took you away,
“That’s where I wanted to go today”.
Will the moon still hang in the sky when I die,
When I die, when I’m high, when I die?
If you were a cloud and you sailed up there,
You’d sail on water as blue as air,
You’d see me here in the fields and say,
“Doesn’t the sky look green today?”

You would probably disagree. Even if you hear the song here 

For more tracks see here

And then? I will skip ‘Crown of Creation’, already done ‘Volunteers’ and then in 1970 the group split. Then two of the group – Grace Slick and Paul Kantner went into space with ‘Blows Against the Empire’ a science fiction inspired album about hi-jacking a starship and heading off out into the cool and the dark.

The acid revolution had turned sour by 1970. The war in Vietnam continued (with the illegal bombing of Cambodia about to start), President Richard Nixon  was in power and all the psychedelic dreams and counterculture schemes had  turned to dust and bitterness. The  first two references are to the 1968 Democratic party Conference in Chicago 1968 which turned in to a riot and Ronald Reagan, B-Movie start Governor of  California, later Mr. President.

You know I remember the 23rd of November
In the abyss of Chicago you can see the barbed wire – pigs around a lot of
nothing
The witch hunters wail and they bark and they wheeze and they try to turn us
into their poison

You unleash the dogs
of a grade-B movie star governor’s war
While you sit in the dark -
insane with the fear of dying
We’ll ball in your parks
- insane with the flash of living

I AM ALIVE
I AM HUMAN
I WILL BE ALIVE AGAIN
So drop your fuckin’ bombs
Burn your demon babies
I WILL BE AGAIN -

You know – a starship circling in the sky – it ought to be ready by 1990
They’ll be building it up in the air even since 1980
People with a clever plan can assume the role of the mighty
and HIJACK THE STARSHIP
Carry 7000 people past the sun
And our babes’ll wander naked thru the cities of the universe
C’mon
free minds, free bodies, free dope, free music
the day is on its way the day is ours

The starship was a fantasy. The actuality was the ‘get back to the land’ movement which spawned a thousand communes. The expectation was of some catastrophe, of a neo-Nazi Amerika… so all the hippies who weren’t quite dead decided to grow their own food and live on the land…a guy called Stewart Brand (who had been one of Ken Kesey’s Merry Prankesters – of Electric Kool Aid Acid Test fame) set up a Whole Earth Catalog. It was a data base of useful tools for back to the land hippies – for making, building, growing  their communities. Some few years later Brand turned it into a computer bulletin board and helped start what was to become the internet / computer revolution. Science fiction became technological reality. Not a starship, but the world wide web. But enough of that. [ There are two recent books on the 'hippies to the internet' theme on my bookshelves but can't find them...one is called 'What the Dormouse Said' > White Rabbit/ Airplane]

And now here is the is the last bit of this story:

At first
I was irridescent
Then
I became transparent
Finally
I was absent

With which ( the song Starship) – see here the album ends.

Richard (North) Cabut has just posted  the 1983 ‘South of Watford’ TV documentary on YouTube, which followed on from his NME/ Positive Punk feature.

It is presented by Michael Moorcock  and features performances and interviews with Blood and Roses and Brigandage  -  plus some old punk footage and 1983 interviews with Jon Savage, Glen Matlock and Siouxsie.

The hairdryer scene was filmed at Puppy Mansions (Westbere Road, West Hampstead). Look out for Cory amongst others…and Stumpy, the ‘punk cat’.

In three parts:

HERE

HERE

AND HERE

Found this  wierd bit of film on You Tube. Filmed from cab of train with a radio on playing some music. It is quite surreal. Here it is  Dalston Junction To Broad Street 1980s

Another Coke / The Body / The Force Is Blind / Thief Of Fire / The Radio Story / Strange Looks

Fire From Heaven / Release The Natives / Fellow Sufferer In Dub / Bugger The Cat

The only (vinyl) LP by Mark Perry’s Good Missionaries that was released during the band’s short existance, recorded live during the band’s supporting role on The Pop Group tour in 1979.

“I rejected punk’s restrictive format and took ATV into a direction that was more like free form jazz than the three chord thrash. Some critics despised the change, a few applauded it. I didnt give a shit. As far as I was concerned, it was my band and I could do what I wanted with it. Miles Copeland (my manager at the time) still talks about the day thet I first played him ‘Vibing…’, he sat there aghast thinking it was some sort of joke until he realised that I was deadly serious. ‘Vibing …’ had, and still has a clarity that I could never acheive within the confines or the traditional rock sound. Punk inspired me but I could never let it constrain me. ‘Vibing …’ is all about me and my life – wierd, stark and sometimes even embarassing. I wanted people to like the album because I guess I wanted them to like me. The real me, not Mark P Punk prophet, but me that lurks behind all the bullshit. I thought that people would appreciate my honesty but most rejected it, perferring the safe world of pop-punk. I still think that ‘Vibing …’ is a classic punk album because it takes it into truly chaotic territory – witness the brooding ‘The Radio Story’ for proof. To me, punks only boundaries are the ones that have been set up in peoples closed minds. Punk became the new rock music.”

Where Have All The Bootboys Gone?

You’re A Bore

One for the old timers browsing the site, snotty punk rock at it’s snottiest…text below courtesy of punk77.co.uk.

Hailing from the notoriously tough Manchester suburb of Wythenshawe (once the skinhead capital of the North) Slaughter & The Dogs originally formed when Wayne Barrett (vocals) and  drummer, Brian (Mad Muffett) Grantham, got together with bassist Howard ‘Zip’ Bates joined them in late 1975. Originally twin guitars, Mick Rossi became the sole guitarist when Mike Day left. Wayne thought up the name for the band whilst lying in bed prior to their first gig…. a mixture of Diamond Dogs by Bowie and Slaughter on 5th Avenue By Mick Ronson…hence Slaughter And The Dogs!

They did the usual rounds in local clubs and working men’s clubs doing covers of Lou Reed, Bowie and started writing their own numbers. Going from strength to strength and picking up good press they found themselves at the forefront of the Manchester punk scene along with the Buzzcocks and The Drones mirroring the London scene. 

They blagged their way onto the bill of the  Free Trade Hall gig with The Sex Pistols and Buzzcocks and managed to get themselves as second on the bill and first on the posters advertising the event and missing out The Buzzcocks!

They came on stage with long hair, satin, guitar poses a la Ronson etc and were hammered by the press and audience. “We really deserved the slagging we got when we first started, but I think its gone on a bit long, we should given the chance to show what we can do.” Wayne. Shy Talk 2. Manchester Fanzine.

But after seeing The Pistols and their look and sound and after taking to heart the criticisms they were astute to enough to see which way the wind was blowing as they cut their hair, changed their clothes and took on the new style like so many other bands of the time. 

Glen Matlock: “I liked them…I thought they were a fun kind of band. I didn’t consider them to be a punk band although they got involved in that ‘coz that was what was going on at the time.”

Tony Wilson: “They probably had a little bit too much Bowie and a little too much Mick Ronson but nevertheless they were good.” 

On Maclarens advice they set of for London and The Roxy club Mike Rossi “The aim after the Free Trade hall thing was for us to try and hit London.”

Their gigging schedule grew heavier and they were soon playing at leading London punk venues like The Roxy and Vortex as well as others like the Marquee and Nashville. Live they were quite a sight with Wayne’s predilection for talc in the absence of smoke generators !!! The Roxy gave the band their first recording break when they appeared on its live album with two songs ‘Boston Babies’ and ‘Runaway’

This led to a one off classic punk anthem single Cranked Up Really High / The Bitch (Rabid 1977 ) which in turn led to the band being signed by Decca. 3 singles followed in quick succession: Where Have All The Boot Boys Gone / You’re a Bore (1977 Decca) , Quick Joey Small / Come On Back (1978 Decca with Mick Ronson their hero),  and Dame To Blame / Johnny T (1977 Decca). However disillusionment at poor sales caused the band to split days before their classic album Do It Dog Style (1978 Decca) was released.

A brief attempt as the Studio Sweethearts featuring Billy Duffy ( ex Nosebleeds and later to reappear in The Cult) and Phil Rowland (ex Eater) along with Bates and Rossi released one single I Believe / It Isn’t Me on DJM to  total silence. Unable to get gigs  and realising there was a market still for Slaughter, the band reformed with Phil Rowland on drums and released the raucous Ready Now / Runaway (DJM 1979).  Wayne Barrett then left again and Ed Banger (ex Nosebleeds) was drafted in.

It has been exactly one year since I started to upload material onto this website from rare cassettes, LP’s, 7″ and 12″ singles. By the thousands of comments left on those posts, it seems like the quest has been well worth it.

It has been a learning curve for sure.

I started my uploading journey with the Touch Of Hysteria cassette on October 23 2007, and during the next couple of months I had sussed out it was much quicker to record the whole side of the tape rather than individual tracks on the tape. I also realised it was better to place both sides of a record onto the same post, rather than two seperate posts for two seperate sides…Doh!

By the turn of the new year I had generally got the mix right on all the uploads posted, including writing small essays on each post relevant to the band, artist, venue or any other interesting detail. Also I started to take time adding photos or gig flyers within the posts. 

Recently in the last three or four months, I have been ripping text off other sites to save me a lot of time trying to think of interesting, or new things, to write about whatever artist or band is featured in the posts. Since the birth of my little boy on April 6th 2008, time has been increasingly important to me.

I have tried to upload interesting material, of all kind of genres, every day (unless I am away from my records, tapes or the computer of course, which is not too often) for the KYPP faithful to check out and hopefully enjoy, discuss or whatever.

I am lucky enough to have worked full time for twenty years now at the same place (Southern Record Distributors), I also run four smaller websites (which do not take up too much of my time ), plus the boy is starting to leave his mother’s side and needs much more time with myself, his father. Time which of course, I am more than prepared to give.

Recording the material (a C90 takes 90 minutes to record to the harddrive), converting to mp3, getting the mp3 on mediafire, scanning or photographing sleeve artwork,  photobucketing those photos or scans. Going on relevant websites to find extra images or text to upload onto the post all take a fair amount of time.

I have therefore made a decision to cut down on the amount of posts I will upload onto this website each week. Normally, through the past months, it could be ten to twelve posts a week, never less than seven (one a day) anyway.

I am planning to upload material when I can, but not on a regular basis like you are all used to. Maybe I can find time for three or four uploads a week, maybe more or maybe less. I don’t know for certain how much time I will have to spare.

One thing I do know for certain is that I will still be uploading much more rare and interesting material for the next year to come, just not on an everyday basis.

Whilst you wait for new posts, it may be a good opportunity to check out the archives (on the right hand side underneath recent comments) for stuff you may have missed out on when it was originally uploaded. Also some good stuff over in the post 86 section to check out.

Lot’s of material already uploaded these past twelve months to comment on, even if a new post does not come fresh each day.

Thanks for the post support, via the comments in the last year, it’s been very uplifting.

Bullshit / Glass Finger / Luscious Glory / Thunder Box

Heart Of Darkness / Black Sage / Delirium / Full Throttle / Res-erect

Sitting somewhere vaguely between The Jonsun Crew, Tackhead and 23 Skidoo, The Empty Quarter release their second and superior LP. Have a listen of this material if you have any interest in proto techno or funky as fuck breakbeats. This LP is indeed a rare groove and a massive treat to the ears… 

Text ripped from funderglass.blogspot

Ben Watkins is a British electronic music artist and producer, best known as being the principal member of the band Juno Reactor. He started making music in 1982. In the early 1980s, Watkins started out as part of the London based New Wave band The Hitmen, featuring Alan Wilder who would end up in Depeche Mode and Recoil. He also played in Empty Quarter with Martin “Youth” Glover a founding member and bassist of Killing Joke.

Three years after opting out of Killing Joke, dreadlocked bassist Youth teamed up with former Hitmen vocalist Ben Watkins (now also versed in keyboards, drums and guitar) to record The Empty Quarter, the official soundtrack from the play ‘Street Captives’ by Jonathan Moore. Recorded on the 26th & 27th August 1983 at Wave Studio. Forceful and musically intelligent, with layers of disembodied sound lunging and pulsing in and out, it’s a striking collection of dramatic, largely electronic instrumentals that bear some of Killing Joke’s fury, mixed with subtlety and artsiness. They adopted The Empty Quarter as their band name. Eighteen months later they followed up with Delerium, this time recorded in 5 days, more electronic, still instrumental, but with a greater focus on rhythms. The beats run from tribal to industrial to gothic funk a la Brilliant (unsurprisingly) with several guest musicians filling out the sound. Alas it didnt get the credit it was due. Ben Watkins went on releasing techno till this date under the moniker Jumo Reactor. Martin “Youth” Glover is an influential record producer and rejoined Killing Joke in 2002.

Blue Midnight - Quarter To Blue / Fire Place / Joy / Crazy / Hot And Cold Hamburger All Stars - I Woke Up / Swinging London pt1 / Studded Leather Jacket

Hamburger All Stars - My Life Is A Mess / Swinging London pt2 Instant Automations – Worchester Avenue / Catacomb / Too Big / Violence / Drunk In Woolwich / Short Haired Man

A full length compilation LP released with the help of no less than three record labels!

Fuck Off Records with the Blue Midnight material.

100 Things To Do Records with the Hamburger All Stars material, and finally,

Deleted Records for the Instant Automations material.

Mostly recorded at Street Level Studios with the help of Here And Now member Steffy and Grant Showbiz (below). 

The Blue Midnight material is my favorite on this LP, kind of laid back jazz funk punk with big horns, but both other bands have there moments.

Hamburger All Stars have amongst the singers and players, Anno, Mark and Dennis from Alternative TV. Steffy from Here And Now, Justin Adams from Impossible Dreamers and Grant Showbiz himself. I also think Andy Morgan, one time Blyth Power backing vocalist and now world music supremo has a part to play in these recordings. I could be wrong though but pretty sure it was he who gave me this record and told me that many many years ago.

Instant Automations have there own brand of pop quirkyness at the end of the second side ‘Short Haired Man’ being a class tune.

Protag from Instant Automations (below) with Grant Showbiz organised the bi-annual Meanwhile Garden Free Festivals near the canal along Great Western Road in Westbourne Park W9, which run from around 1976 to 1988 (I think), so thanks to them both for the effort they put in, so us lot could have a free afternoon of music and fun.

More Blue Midnight, Hamburger All Stars and Instant Automations on this site if you search for the artists using the search function.

Meanwhile Gardens and Grant Showbiz photos from the Instant Automations website here.

Cat On A Wall

Night Ride / Back Track

Debut release on Deptford Fun City Records, also the first 12″ offering from Squeeze to hit the public during the height of the new wave boom in 1977. Squeeze who were active in the mid 1970′s got a fair amount of inspiration from bands like The Count Bishops, Dr Feelgood and Kilburn And The High Roads.

Squeeze were soon to experience critical acclaim and high chart positions from the following releases for A & M Records after this introduction on the small independant record label Deptford Fun City. Miles Copeland of Deptford Fun City managed to hustle John Cale down to Pathway Studios to produce the tracks on this 12″ record which was a bit of a coup.  

Text below courtesy of wikki… 

The band’s founding members in March 1974 were Chris Difford (guitar, vocals, lyrics), Glenn Tilbrook (vocals, guitar, music), Jools Holland (keyboards), and Paul Gunn (drums). The group played under several names, most frequently “Captain Trundlow’s Sky Company” or “Skyco”, before selecting the band name “Squeeze” as a facetious tribute to The Velvet Underground’s oft-derided 1973 album of the same name.

Gilson Lavis replaced Gunn on drums and Harry Kakoulli joined on bass in 1976.

Squeeze’s early career was spent around Deptford in SE London, where they were part of a lively local music scene which included Alternative TV and Dire Straits. The group’s early singles and debut EP, 1977′s Packet of Three, were released on the Deptford Fun City Label.

Squeeze’s first EP and most of its self-titled debut album (1978) were produced by John Cale for A&M Records. However, the debut album’s two hit singles (“Take Me I’m Yours” and “Bang Bang”) were produced by the band themselves, as the label found Cale’s recordings uncommercial.

In the United States and Canada, the band and album were dubbed U.K. Squeeze due to legal conflicts arising from a contemporary American band called “Tight Squeeze”. The “U.K.” was dropped for all subsequent releases. In Australia, the same name change was used due to legal conflicts arising from an existing Sydney-based band also called “Squeeze”. Albums in Australia were credited to U.K. Squeeze up to and including Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti.

The band’s second album, Cool for Cats (1979), contained the band’s two highest charting UK singles in “Cool For Cats” and “Up The Junction”, both of which peaked at #2. John Bentley replaced Harry Kakoulli on bass in 1979 following the release of the LP.

Argybargy (1980), the band’s third album, was also a UK hit. It was additionally a mild breakthrough in North America, as the single “Another Nail In My Heart” was a #56 hit in Canada, and second single “Pulling Mussels From The Shell” received airplay on US Rock stations.

Keyboardist Jools Holland left the band for a solo career in 1980. Keyboard duties were taken over by highly-rated singer-keyboardist Paul Carrack, a former member of British soul-pop band Ace, who scored a major international hit with the song “How Long.” Carrack had also been a member of Roxy Music.

In 1981 the band cut perhaps their best-known album, East Side Story. It was produced by Elvis Costello and Roger Bechirian, and featured Carrack’s lead vocals on the radio hit “Tempted”. Carrack himself left after the release of East Side Story, and was replaced by Don Snow. This line-up recorded the Sweets From A Stranger LP in 1982. Negative reviews, the stresses of touring, and conflict between band members led Difford and Tilbrook to break up the band later that year, after releasing a final single, “Annie Get Your Gun”.