A KYPP catch up on recent You Tube posts that have been published recently.
A set of 23 Skidoo videos released on the Double Vision label, sitting nicely alongside other Double Vision videos of Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire. This video was one of the first video cassettes I ever got my hands on. My family did not own a video recorder at this time, so I had to take this video cassette around friends houses to have a sneaky view.
“Seven Songs is the first and arguably the best of the 23 Skidoo albums, released in 1982 on Fetish Records in a great sleeve by Neville Brody. Production was by “Tony, Terry & David” aka Ken Thomas, Genesis P-Orridge & Peter Christopherson. The latter two were still in Throbbing Gristle at the time. The video director was Richard Heslop who can be seen with his Super-8 camera on the inner sleeve of 23 Skidoo’s second album. Seven Songs is his first credited film work.
The videos are very much of their time, layered and cut-up images mixing footage from numerous sources—tribal rituals, totalitarian politics, animation, medical or scientific films, shots of the group performing, and so on—with the whole mélange processed through a video synthesiser. While it may look outmoded now, over thirty years later this degree of intensity and fragmentation was still radically unlike anything being offered by broadcast television. Pop video directors and ad agencies weren’t slow to adopt similar techniques for far more commercial ends. Richard Heslop went on to work with Derek Jarman, and recently directed a feature of his own, Frank”.
John Coulthart
Null And Void were a band from around the Yeovil area formed in 1980. Closely aligned to Yeovil’s other band at the time, The Mob, the original members of Null And Void were Mark Hedge, Adie Tompkins and Andrew Barker.
Barker had already previously released a record on the All The Madmen record label under the name Andy Stratton, along with The Mob’s then drummer Graham Fallows.
Both The Mob and Null And Void members lived together in a shared commune in Seend a village in Wiltshire.
Adie Tompkins would eventually perform drumming duties for The Mob for a short time after Graham decided to leave that band.
Eventually most of The Mob and Null And Void members decided to leave the sticks and chance squatting in London. Brougham Road in Hackney was the area where the bands shared bus ended up and parked up. Zounds, a close ally to both bands on the newly arrived bus had secured some property in that street a few months previously.
This demo cassette uploaded today were recorded and engineered by Pete Fender at the Xntrix studio situated in the basement of the Poison Girls house in Leytonstone.
The band by the time of recordings had a new drummer in Josef Porta who had been staying in Brougham Road with the other members of Zounds.
Josef of course later joined The Mob, and continues to perform today with Blyth Power. Delia supplied some backing vocals and Pete Nothing added a couple of poems on the sessions that would be released on the cassette.
Pete Nothing was not Pete Fender incidentally in case anyone wondered…
For the download and other information please open up the KYPP link HERE.
This demo cassette contains absolutely wonderful material by Null And Void, material which still sounds incredibly strong today.
Thoughts of Pete Fender:
“I always loved this band, recording them was a joy as the material was so immediate and uplifting, not to mention them being a great bunch of people. I knew Josef already from his work with Zounds and not only were they pretty stoked to have got him for the session, straight away I knew we were going to have no trouble with the drum sound.
I seem to remember bumping into Mark Hedge at Stonehenge 1981 (or was it 82?) and spending much of the festival in his company. Andy Barker shared a house in Cross Street with my sister Gemma (Rubella Ballet) and some other people for a time, including Andy Palmer (Crass).
I used to listen to this demo all the time back then and I was extremely chuffed when they came back to do their 7″ single with me.
Great stuff”
This session by Joseph Hill’s Culture was recorded in December 1982 at the BBC Maida Vale studios for the John Peel radio 1 programme and is one of my favorite Peel sessions. Furthermore it is also one of the all time great Peel sessions, in John Peels own opinion!
I was once told that John Peel wept when he first heard the results on the tapes that Dale Griffin had handed to him a few days before the session was meant to be aired in January 1983. John Peels opinion on Culture is written in burgundy red bold towards the bottom of this KYPP post HERE.
The versions of the two newer tracks ‘Lion Rock’ and ‘Armageddon’ that Culture recorded for the BBC actually eclipse the quality of the versions that had previously been recorded at Aquarius studios in Kingston and both released on the ‘Lion Rock’ album on the Sonic Sounds record label in 1982. This was no mean feat as Culture’s ‘Lion Rock’ album is an immense work in itself!
‘Too Long In Slavery’ and Two Sevens Clash’ were older songs from Culture’s past. 1976 and 1977.
The version of ‘Lion Rock’ recorded at Maida Vale for the John Peel session is just perfect. I cannot stress this enough!
Tracklisting:
Lion Rock
Armageddon
Too Long In Slavery
Two Sevens Clash
That moment when you first hear a song by a band unknown to you at the time and fall for it absolutely and completely.
Still being the age that I am, I was a couple of years late on getting a copy of the Last Words 7″ single ‘Animal World’. Like I was with other classic singles that stop you dead in your tracks; The Fly’s ‘Love In A Molotov Cocktail’ 7″ single for example, and of course, The Barracudas 7″ single, ‘I Want My Woody Back’.
Whilst I was in the record bins at Small Wonder Records or some such record store, scrabbling away for these kind of ‘lost’ classics two years too late (for what?), the real action had already happened and past over in the grimy squats of, in those days, the exceptionally grimy London town.
Members of The Last Words and The Barracudas in 1979, were intertwined with Tony D’s ‘Ripped And Torn’ fanzine and shortly they were both to be intertwined with Tony D’s ‘Kill Your Pet Puppy’ fanzine and extended ‘Puppy Collective’.
I cannot write words about this time, as I was not there during the R&T/ KYPP scene in 1979!
Although I do know some that were.
Tony D, Jeremy Gluck (The Barracudas) and Bob Short certainly can write, and write they all did…
They all contribute words for the 2012 celebratory fifth year anniversary for the Kill Your Pet Puppy blog that I had organised and arranged for these two special bands, The Last Words and The Barracudas to be featured, showcased whatever.
The post was exceptionally good, even if I do say so myself.
Read it HERE.
Glance over the words written by these lost souls, concerning the lost history, about these lost bands, in that lost era.
You might find it interesting.
For my part, I am still fully behind what I wrote on the post.
“Both the début 7” singles by The Barracudas and Last Words were immense power pop punk classics. Both were released in the UK in 1979. Both could be among the best records of that era. That’s for you to decide. Moreover all the tracks on either side of both the records last under two minutes thirty seconds of playing time, just how it should have been in 1979!”
Fill your boots.
Culture are one of my favourite reggae trios; uploaded here on this YouTube post are three 12″ Discos A & B sides from 1977 and 1978.
Roots reggae of the highest quality.
One of my favourite John Peel sessions was the only session by Culture way back in 1982. That session may be listened to, and more information on Culture may be found, on this KYPP post HERE.
Joe Gibbs records 1978
1/ Culture and Nicodemus – Disco Train
2/ The Professionals – Righteous Train
Sky Note records 1977
1/ Culture and Ranking Trevor – Trod On
2/ The Revolutionaries – Trod On In Dub
Errol T records 1978
1/ Culture and Clint Eastward – Send Some Rain
2/ The Professionals – Down Jamaica Way
A little under one and a half hours worth of 12″ vinyl releases A & B sides from Adrian Sherwood’s Hit Run record label.
Adrian licensed the tracks on these vinyl releases for the U.K reggae market from various Jamaican record labels, Scorpio, Cry Tuff etc in 1979.
Hit Run records was a relatively short lived project, releasing around twenty five 12″ singles with several more 12″ singles being shelved, Hit Run records eventually winding down in favour of the birth of Adrian’s On U Sound record label.
For the new On U Sound project Adrian oversaw and engineered all of the recording sessions himself generally favouring the Berry Street Studio in London. Southern Studios in London was also used often for recording sessions. Other recording sessions were completed at Channel One in Kingston, Jamaica and the Manor recording studio in Oxfordshire.
Adrian used some of the same musicians and artists for these sessions that he had dealt with previously, bringing reggae music to the Hit Run record label including Bim Sherman, Prince Far I, Roots Radics and Creation Rebel etc.
Track listing:
Errol Holt – Sweet Reggae Music
Prince Far I – Hairdressing Salon
Prince Hammer – Ten Thousand Lions
Prince Hammer – North London Thing
Bim Sherman / Jah Lion – Down In Jamdown
Teem All Stars – Version
Bobby Melody / Jah Lion – Hunger And Strife
Jah Lion – Jonnie Walker
Peter Broggs / Prince Far I – Higher Field Marshall
Prince Far I / Brigadier Jam Brown – Loved By Everyone
Carol Kalphat / Clint Eastwood – African Land
Doctor Pablo / Cry Tuff All Stars – African Melody
Bim Sherman / Jah Buzz – Love Jah Only
Cry Tuff All Stars – Dub From The Ghetto
Don Julian
August 4, 2016 at 1:29 pmThanks for the awesome music!
Those hit run 45’s are heavy for sure.
Peace,
Don Julian.