Loving You (Orbital Mix)

Bucket And Spade Mix / Why Is Six Scared Of Seven?

First 12″ released by The Orb on Sheffield’s Wau! Mr Modo Records. A record label home to Sound Iration, Lidj Incorporated and other digital dub-wise artists. This release by Alex Patterson and Jim Caulty was well received by indie kids and ravers. Jim Caulty went onto work with Bill Drummond and KLF. Alex started work with old Killing Joke buddy, Youth for Orb material after this single.

Adam Morris from Wau! Mr Modo was and still is a very nice guy to a younger Penguin. Adam had done his stint with the punks in 1976 and 1977. He knew all the major players in the scene including The Pistols and The Clash. He went on to manage Killing Joke in their formative years until a little after the ‘Revelations’ LP in 1982. He also got me into loads of gigs, including my finest blag to date, The Orb at Hatfield Polytechnic 1991 or there abouts. Penguin + 8, the people on the door were waiting to see who Penguin was “cos he seemed so important!”

I was lucky to see The Orb live shows loads of times all over the place, until about 1993, always with a handful of  ‘Doves’, with the help of Adam Morris (not the pills, the guest-lists!). Cheers Adam!

The Orb seemed to me a progression of the Club Dog club vibe, with artists like Another Green World and Webcore. The Spiral Tribe and Bedlam Sound Systems, who I have DJ’ed with. Also the Whirl-y-Gig set up, continued this spirit for me personally later on in the 1990′s.

I often wonder if Kill Your Pet Puppy was written in 1989 instead of 1979 what would the front cover have written on it?

In 1979 the cover stated ’Ants/Tuinol/Crass’. I would guess that the cover for 1989 would probably have read ‘The Orb/Ecstasy/Spiral Tribe’!

The Lawless And The Damned / Everybody Knows / Deep

Another offering from Brighton. For this session Gerard from Flowers In The Dustbin and First Of May is working with Tim Bennet and Martin Fish from the late 1980′s band Salad From Atlantis. Salad From Atlantis released two LP’s, one for Meantime Records, and the follow up for Hidden Wheel Records that was basically Brighton based Robin and Lee from Acid Rain Productions. This is a nice session, give it a try.

Freaks Of Nature / In A Sacred Manner I Live / A Song For England / When She Was There

Gerard from the criminally underrated Flowers In The Dustbin, a band active from 1983 until 1987, created this new band after leaving London for the more rural / seaside confines of Brighton in the late 1980′s. The sea air certainly seems to have done some good as the sound of First Of May is certainly more rural, largely acoustic. I have a vision of a horse drawn Gypsy wagon going through a stream as the late summer sun is going down over the fields every-time I hear First Of May for some reason!

Other members of the band were Dave Bruce, Ben Paley and Angie Mills. Shame they are performing no more…

First Of May are also on another post in this section, Flowers In The Dustbin material can be found in the main links / downloads section.

Gerard is involved in this Kill Your Pet Puppy site, and he also has this site for any Flowers In The Dustbin and related features. Check it here

All You Need Is Love

Great release, money ripped off of Alan McGee from Creation Records, some illegal sampling of The Beatles, MC5, Hall And Oats and the mighty Samantha Fox. Lyrics concerning the real threat of AIDS in society, a disease that even in the mid to late 1980′s was largely ignored and opinions held by the great British public that ‘we are OK, only gingers get that disease’…A great poster campaign, second only to God Told Me To Do It campaigns. The posters on all the photographs for the press (inc above) were put up in Caledonian Road, London, N1 a few doors down from Housmans Bookshop, the Malt And Hops pub and Rough Trade Distribution. Further up the road was crucial corner where All The Madmen Records ended there days. Also Better Badges and FO Tapes were in the same building…This release came out in incredibly limited quantities (although I had two copies!) until the official release (not included on the official release were some of the samples that JAMM had got away with on this pre release). JAMM was basically Bill Drummond under the name King Boy D, ex manager of Teardrop Explodes and Echo and The Bunnymen. Ex owner of Zoo Records in Liverpool. Artist for Creation Records, the money McGee gave him originally was to produce a new Bill Drummond LP for Creation, not to turn into King Boy D and JAMM’s.

JAMM’s metamorphised into KLF a little later on in the decade and became pretty huge in the alternative and rave market, they even appeared on the Brits Showcase with my old mates, and Peel favorites, Extreme Noise Terror from Ipswich…KLF also famously set fire to £1,000000 which according to James Drummond, Bill’s son and fellow THFC supporter, was real money but actually money that was out of circulation. KLF got it for a very small transfer fee from the Bank of England just to destroy…So now you know!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY…All you need is love!!!

The Mirror Breaks

A very good version of The Mob’s ‘The Mirror Breaks’ from this jangly Glasgow C86 band. Well worth a listen…anarcho-pop music at it’s best…

Blue Murder / Missing Person / Flesh Market / No Love Lost

A band born out of the ashes of Youth In Asia in 1985, Decadent Few featured the ’operatic’ vocals of Kaya who possessed one of the most interesting vocal styles I have ever heard, either in a live situation or on a recording such as this tape, the band’s second. A classic rocking four tracks from this underrated band…oh and those vocals…

A worthy listen indeed and also a great interview can be read HERE about the band and other related subjects straight from the memory banks of Mike Clarke, Decadent Few’s guitarist.

Thanks For The Memory / Strange Music / Temptation

Start The Day Right / One For My Baby / The Year Of Jubilo / Gloomy Sunday

Anton LaVey, 1960′s ‘Head’ and media nemesis, founder member of San Fransisco’s Church Of Satan, musician, writer and some time film star (Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby) showing his talents in a ‘Ballroom’ style…including the number one suicide song, better known sung by Billie Holiday, banned for many years in many countries, ’Gloomy Sunday’.

The man himself passed on in 1997…

More info on this record here