CBVD Episode 19

The latest episode of Car Boot Vinyl Diaries is now up on Mixcloud, with an hour of all-vinyl tunes sourced from car boot sales and charity shops.  Featured artists include Sylvester, The B52s, Wings, Isaac Hayes, Harry Stoneham and loads more.

Use the player below or follow the link to the show page.



https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-19/

CBVD Episode 18

The newest episode of Car Boot Vinyl Diaries is now online, with tunes from The Bodines, Frank Sidebottom, The Fall, Nina Simone, Londonbeat, Syreeta, and loads more, including Barbra Streisand covering David Bowie.

Use the player below or click the link to go to the page.  Happy listening!




https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-18/

Good Morning Good Morning

One sunny morning over the Easter hols this year I was pleased to find this record at a midweek car boot sale, still in great condition and costing just a pound.

Various Artists - Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father (1988)

Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father was organised by the New Musical Express and put out on their own record label in order to raise money for the charity Childline, founded two years before.  The NME managed to persuade a variety of artists to record covers of songs from this most beloved Fabs album, and it resulted in quite the mixed bag.

Low points are Hue & Cry's irritating jazz-funk Fixing A Hole, the two renditions of the title track by UK hip hop act The Three Wize Men, and UK no.1 single by Wet Wet Wet With A Little Help From My Friends.  I've just learned that the latter was in fact a double a-side with Billy Bragg's She's Leaving Home, which as far as I remember got none of the TV or radio plays, which is a shame as it's pretty good, especially in comparison with the inescapable Pellow smugfest on the flip.

Highlights include Sonic Youth's feedback-laden Within You Without You, Michelle Shocked's rather lovely Lovely Rita, and Frank Sidebottom's bonkers cover of Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite.  Top prize goes to The Fall, however, for an excellent effort on closer A Day In The Life, complete with runout groove gobbledegook.  All in all a good quid's worth and an odd little sort of time capsule from when the original Pepper was just 21 years old.


Also costing £1 was B.W. Goes C&W by Bobby Womack.

Bobby Womack - BW Goes C&W (1976)

United Artists weren't happy about soul singer Womack's desire to make an album of country covers, particularly in '76 when a move into disco would have been the obvious career move.  But when Bobby told them he wanted to call it "Step Aside Charley Pride, Give Another Nigger A Try", they let him go ahead with the project under the condition the title was changed to something more, er... commercial.  It sold poorly anyway, so I knew nothing about it until I spied it on a blanket on the ground at a chilly car boot sale in February.  As a lover of country soul I wasn't going to leave it there in the pile of Jim Reeves and Don Williams, especially with the wonderful front cover image, plus Bobby looking cool-as-heck on the back:

Photo from rear cover. A cropped version of this image was also used
on the country soul compilation Dirty Laundry: The Soul Of Black Country.

With Bobby's soulful takes on Charlie Rich's Behind Closed Doors (from the charity shop classic album of the same name), Eddy Arnold's Bouquet Of Roses, and an absolutely charming duet with his father Friendly Womack Sr. on Tarnished Rings, BW Goes C&W is something of a hidden gem, and a must-listen for country soul fans.  Only Big Bayou jars a little, but that's due more to the comparative tone than its execution.

You can hear three tracks from the album on the latest installment of Car Boot Vinyl Diaries, since it was this episode's Featured Album.

I spotted this great record sleeve in a local hospice shop recently, so naturally had to take a closer look.

Various Artists - Surprise Partie - Tous Les Jeunes (1973)
"Putting young people in the spotlight", according to translation of the sleeve notes.

Promotional sticker by Hennessy.

The term 'surprise partie' in France once meant much the same as it did elsewhere, but from around the 1950s it came to mean any impromptu get-together by young people, paticularly teenagers, with the "surprise" part no longer relevant.  Of course the record industry made the most of this trend, in particular Disque Vogue who really embraced the concept, putting out loads of albums on this theme in the 1960s:

A small selection of 'surprise partie' themed LPs from Disque Vogue.
I've no idea what the Guinea pig and penguin logos represent.

Surprise Partie - Tous Les Jeunes, which cost me a pound, plunders Disques Vogue's '60s vaults for recordings by a variety of pop singers and instrumental groups.  François Hardy and Petula Clark are well represented with three songs each, including a wonderful vocal version of The Shadows' Foot Tapper by Pet, called Mon Bonheur Danse ('My Dancing Happiness', according to Google translate) and of course François' hardy perennial Tous Les Garçons Et Les Filles.

Others artists include guitar-wielding duo Les "Faux" Frères, who sound like they modelled themselves on the Everly Brothers; rock 'n' roll / surf 4-piece The "Octopus"; and a handful of solo artists, such as Stella, a teen pop singer whose songs have been described as "parodies of the Yé-yé style" and "engagingly sarcastic".  (These days she's a vocalist with French proggers and Steve Davis favourites Magma, after wedding drummer and founder Christian Vander.)

You can hear the Petula Clark track mentioned above on the latest Car Boot Vinyl Diaries, alongside those from Bobby Womack, plus lots more car boot and charity shop vinyl.  But first, here are The "Octopus" with their track Hurricane, played from the original EP on a tasty looking Dansette.

Cloudcast Episode17

Episode 17 of Car Boot Vinyl Diaries is now on Mixcloud for your listening pleasure, with tunes freshly plucked from the fields of Suffolk.  With a country soul gem for the Featured Album, a double bill for Novelty Island and a great long song for The Boot Of Loot, there's probably something for everyone.

Listen using the player below, or click the link to go to the show page.  And have a great Easter weekend!

Picture This

On visits to car boot sales I often see LPs and singles produced to exploit the lucrative children's market, many of them relating to successful films and TV shows, and the majority featuring characters and stories from cartoon animations.

At a chilly boot sale at the end of October last year I was delighted to spot this, and quickly snapped it up for £1:

More Willo The Wisp Stories - Narrated by Kenneth Williams (1983)

This LP on the BBC's in-house record label contains the audio from twelve episodes of the hugely popular TV series Willo The Wisp, of which there were 26 episodes in all (if you don't include a 90s remake, which I don't).  A dozen more can be found on the 1981 original release titled simply 'Willo The Wisp', but that one is seemingly a little harder to find.

The great Kenneth Williams voices the narrator of the title, and lead character Mavis, the very definition of an airy-fairy, with a heart of gold and a head full of not very much.  Williams' astonishing array of comic voices also brings to life her friends, who include Arthur, the cockney know-it-all caterpillar; and Moog (my favourite), a friendly but brainless dog-like character who regularly demonstrates that ignorance is indeed bliss.  The villain of Doyley Woods is Evil Edna; a walking, talking television set with wickedly magical antennae.  This used to make me and my sisters laugh a lot, since we have a nana named Edna.

Although some of the visual gags are lost without the animation, the 5-minute stories are still as sharp and funny as I remember them, in particular one called Magic Golf where poor Mavis (or "Mave" as Arthur calls her) loses the star on the end of her wand and with the help of her chums has to wing an inspection from the Dept. of Spells & Magic in order to advance to the position of 2-Star Fairy.

The collection is littered with fab BBC sound effects, including some some lovely Radiophonic Workshop-evoking "zap"s on The Joys Of Spring.  And of course you get the theme music bookending each story, that will take those of a certain age straight back to weekday teatimes just before the 5:40pm news.  Happily, a whole bunch can be found on YouTube, and since it's the appropriate time of year, here's The Joys Of Spring.

Be careful though; if you're anything like me you'll be drawn into a Willo The Wisp rabbit hole for the next couple of hours.

Well all right, just one more.  Here's The Thoughts Of Moog:

Bought the same day and also costing a pound was this LP from Hanna-Barbera Productions:

Yogi Bear and Boo Boo - Little Red Riding Hood and Jack & The Beanstalk
(1977)

Tucked up in their cave for winter, here Jellystone's smarter-than-average bear tells his old pal Boo Boo a couple of pre-hibernation bedtime stories.  The whole thing has a fun 60s vibe, the opening theme a perfect beat group pastiche, and Jack of Beanstalk fame described by Yogi as a dropout who'd sold all his personal possessions, "even his Beatle records" - imagine that!  Funniest of all is Little Red Riding Hood, portrayed as a sneaker-wearing, scooter-riding, jive-talking (she calls her Grandmother "baby") teenager.  Just like the original Red she takes zero nonsense from the Big Bad Wolf, but in this incarnation adds some Judo moves to subdue him, rather than relying on some random man with an axe to turn up and save her.

The almost constant incidental music and zippy SFX keep the stories moving at an engaging pace, and both tales are summed up in song; Jack's by a minstrel wielding a jangly guitar, and Red's in the form of a beat-style reading over a cool, finger-snappin' jazzy background.  Groovy.


In August last year I bought a pile of 50 pence 7" singles from one stall, among them this little beauty:

Tweety Pie - I Taut I Taw A Puddy Tat b/w Bugs Bunny - I'm Glad That I'm
Bugs Bunny (1970)

This 1970 single is on Music For Pleasure's children's imprint 'Surprise Surprise', and contains two Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies songs recorded and originally released on 78rpm shellac in 1950.  They feature three characters from the "Man Of 1000 Voices" Mel Blanc; Tweety and his nemesis Sylvester on I Taut I Taw A Puddy Tat (as played on the latest CBVD cloudcast) and our favourite rabbit on the b-side, with I'm Glad That I'm Bugs Bunny.  Both sign off with the Looney Tunes, er, tune, which is worth the 50p alone as far as I'm concerned.

Less good value for money was this, bought for £1 the following weekend:

Scooby Doo and the Snowmen Mystery (1973)

Scooby Doo and the Snowmen Mystery was released in 1973 as part of Music For Pleasure's 'Merry Go Round' series.  I was quite excited to find this, until upon listening it became clear that MfP's budget didn't run to hiring Don Messick and co. to play their parts, or even to licencing original material from CBS.  Instead, a handful of British voice actors were employed, which unfortunately is glaringly obvious from the collection of ropey US accents on display.  Fred actually sounds more like the original Shaggy, but worst of all is poor Daphne; saddled with a gruffer voice than the original Velma, she gives Dick Van Dyke's cockney chimney sweep a run for his money in the comedy accent stakes, as well as sounding like she's got a serious problem with tranquilisers.

Still, if you can get past this, the story isn't so bad.  After more beat group pastiche on intro song Mystery Incorporated the gang interrupt their vacation to investigate strange goings-on in Switzerland.  Their adventures lead them to uncover the usual plot by a super-baddie to take over the world, and there are some decent sound effects and musical interludes to keep things fresh.

Here's a small taste of Scoob and Shaggy's dialogue, followed by the Bacharach-ian What Would I Do Without You, to play us out.

CBVD Cloudcast 16

The latest episode of Car Boot Vinyl Diaries is now on Mixcloud, with all sorts of car boot bangers and chazza choons.  The Featured Album is a collection of BBC Sporting Themes, there's a a great French-language Kinks cover from Petula Clark, and the rest of it runs the gamut from Tom Waits to Tweety Pie.

Use the player below or visit the CBVD Mixcloud page https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/

Neither Fish Nor Flesh

On one hot Sunday in the middle of August last year the first car boot sale I arrived at was heaving from beginning to end with vinyl and shellac to dig through.  I bought so many 45s, 78s, 12"s and LPs that I ran out of time, pennies and inclination to go on to the next port of call, and so returned home with a record bag bursting with 26 discs in all, plus a multi CD set in a faux LP sleeve.

Phew. 78s weigh a lot.

Amongst this heavy haul was Terence Trent D'Arby's 1989 album Neither Fish Nor Flesh, bought in excellent condition with the original booklet intact for £2.

Terence Trent D'Arby - Neither Fish Nor Flesh (1989)

Inside booklet, with rice paper pages.

Definitely looks like fish to me, Terence.

From rear of booklet.

Subtitled "A Soundtrack of Love, Faith, Hope and Destruction", this 2nd album from the Manhattan-born singer, songwriter and musician (now releasing music under the name Sananda Maitreya) followed 1987's multi-platinum "Introducing The Hardline According To...".  Unlike Hardline, NFNF tanked, peaking at no.12 on the UK album chart before dropping out entirely after just five weeks.  Lead single This Side of Love fared even worse, scraping into the Top 100 at just no.83.

It seems that a combination of ego and ambition scuppered the project, with D'Arby making wild proclamations both about himself and his latest work, with the latter sounding very different from the chart-friendly pop smashes that characterised his debut. Even today on his website Sananda makes outlandish claims, such as that NFNF was a "formative influence on both what subsequently became marketed as 'Hip Hop', as well as what was sold as 'Grunge'".

Maybe he truly believes this, but it's a huge shame that such posturing probably put a lot of fans off from buying what turns out to be a phenomenally good record; one that's perhaps borne of overindulgence and ego-led ambition, but succeeds in melding funk and R&B to catchy, psychedelic pop.  There's a huge cast of musicians, with D'Arby himself on a variety of instruments including Fender Rhodes, sitar, timpani, "scratching" and er, kazoo.  He's also credited with things like "Aural Manipulations" and "Sound Manifestations", not to mention the highly intriguing and un-Googlable "Other Phaqueries".  Hmm.


It starts quietly, the spoken-word Declaration: Neither Fish Nor Flesh giving way to the sparse but melodic I Have Faith In These Desolate Times, whose harp accompaniment by "The Lovely Helen Davies" (sleeve notes) in the first half is joined by Terence on bongos in the second, before an abrupt end.  After the eerie and equally sparse It Feels So Good To Love Someone Like You it's not until the middle of Side 1 that things really get going, with the sexy pop-soul of To Know Someone Deeply Is To Know Someone Softly when That Voice is finally unleashed; those sweet, silken tones hitting all the right buttons and delivering the most romantic and least pretentious lyrics on an album that has its fair share of cringeworthy couplets.

From here the tempo increases and the song titles become snappier, highlights being AIDS story Billy Don't Fall, its punchy percussion and whistling keyboard riff reminiscent of hit Wishing Well; the staccato funk of You Will Pay Tomorrow; and minor soul belter I'll Be Alright, with lyrical nods to Prince and the Beach Boys.

Towards the end of the album song titles stretch out again with a corresponding lowering of pace, firstly with powerful deep soul ballad I Don't Want To Bring Your Gods Down. Stax-y horns and D'Arby's full-throated wail contrast with an intermittent minor-key violin part; an unsettling but typical and effective TTD touch.  Closer ...And I Need To Be With Someone Tonight is a solo a cappella with layers of TTD harmony, engaging for the way in which he's clearly enjoying playing around with his voice, but spoiled somewhat by lyrics like the clunky, "Though apartheid's a greater issue, I long to hear "I miss you" ". Erk!

It's a damn shame that this album didn't sell well, and although D'Arby's posturing may have deterred potential buyers, the bigger factor may have been a lack of marketing push behind it due to the eccentric and ambitious nature of both the artist and his creation.  I only say this because after loving the debut, Neither Fish Nor Flesh seemed to entirely pass me by at the time, even though I eagerly bought the follow-up Symphony Or Damn. Perhaps if NFNF had contained a sure-fire 'hit' to promote as a single it would have done better.  Whatever the reasons, if you've not heard it I urge you to give it a whirl, in case like me it means you've been missing out on a massively enjoyable record all these years.

Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016 - Day 7

Today's festive LPs were kindly sent to me as earlier this year by a dear chum; charity shop connoisseur and tat-magnet Beany.  The first has already become one of my favourite ever Christmas albums; The Swingalongs Present: Sing A Song Of Christmas.

The Swingalongs Present: Sing A Song Of Christmas (1973)

According to the notes on the back cover this MfP release was "Arranged and produced by the same team that made Tijuana Christmas", i.e the greatest ever Christmas album (billed as being by the Torero Band), so no surprise that it raced into my Top Ten so quickly.  Indeed, Alan Moorhouse is named as arranger and director, with Bill Wellings as producer.  The "20 non-stop Christmas songs" are in fact arranged into half a dozen medleys of the usual suspects, all carols except opener Jingle Bells.

The up-tempo stuff is totally groovy, with a swinging drummer, funky bassist, plus of course the other trademark instruments used by this set-up such as xylophone, organ and of course trumpet.  The vocals are great; harmonious and sweet with faux-American accents, these guys 'n' gals are square as hell, but hugely entertaining, although by the end of Side 2 their relentlessness can be a little wearing, especially on the slower carol medleys.

There are plenty of parts that put a grin on my face, including the bouncy percussion and farty brass of the opening medley, and a brief but sexy organ flourish between Ding Dong Merrily On High and We Three Kings.  Another album I now need to look out for is the only other one released under The Swingalongs' name; a double with Bert Shorthouse and his Glenlomond Band called "Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year".  It has Bert and co. on the second disc playing 20 non-stop New Year's party tunes, and presumably on the Christmas-themed first disc by The Swingalongs the same non-stop recordings as on my album, having an identical track list.


Also in the surprise package from Beany was The Julie Andrews Christmas Album.

The Julie Andrews Christmas Album (1983)

Here Julie is backed by a symphony orchestra as she makes her way through a clutch of familiar favourites plus a few more unusual songs such as French carol Patapan (the English translation rather than the Burgundian original), Christian folk hymn I Wonder As I Wander, and a goosebump-inducing version of Bing Crosby's The Secret Of Christmas.

Julie has several Christmas albums in her discography, but this particular set of songs has been issued more than once (this 1983 edition is a Reader's Digest release), firstly in 1975 (minus two tracks) as "The Secret Of Christmas", then in 1982 as "Christmas With Julie Andrews", and again in 1987 as "The Sound Of Christmas" complete with Sound Of Music rip-off cover art:

The lush, movie soundtrack-style orchestration suits her crystal clear soprano beautifully, and with Julie you can relax safe in the knowledge that she's never going to miss one of the high notes - and there are plenty of those here!

Join me again tomorrow, Thursday the 22nd of December (getting close now!), for Day 8 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown with Yuletide albums from three ladies of country. Hear me playing over an hour of car boot and charity shop Christmas music using the player below or by following the link to Mixcloud.


https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/

Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016 - Day 2

Hello and welcome to Day 2 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown, where I'm digging out some of the festive albums I've found at car boot sales and charity shops over the last couple of years.  If you missed the first installment yesterday you can find it here http://carbootvinyldiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/car-boot-christmas-countdown-2016-day-1.html

Today's seasonal duo were both found in charity shops, beginning with the Scrooged Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, for which I paid 50p.

Scrooged - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1989)

Scrooged was a 1989 update of A Christmas Carol, and stars the wonderful Bill Murray as Frank Crass, a TV exec who's forgotten the true meaning of Christmas and who needs his icy heart warming up a touch.  The soundtrack features a couple of Yuletide standards in Natalie Cole's version of The Christmas Song and a cool-as-heck rendition of We Three Kings by Miles Davies, Larry Carlton, David Sanborn and Paul Shaffer, who also appear in the film as a group of street musicians insulted by Frank:

The rest is a mixture of pop covers and original material, the best being Annie Lennox and Al Green's feelgood Put A Little Love In Your Heart (as opposed to the also very good version sung by the cast as the credits roll, with Bill shouting "Feed me, Seymour!"), U2's The Sweetest Thing performed by gospel group New Voices of Freedom, and the lightweight but fun Get Up 'N' Dance from Kool Moe Dee.  Low points are Robbie Robertson's Christmas Must Be Tonight and Dan Hartman and Denise Lopez's The Love You Take, which both display the worst kind of eighties bland forgettability.

From rear sleeve

Even with the weaker tracks, if you're a fan of the film this LP is a must-have.  If you've never seen Scrooged before, for goodness sake go and watch it this Christmas!  It's guaranteed to appear somewhere on the schedules, usually on Film 4 in the UK.


For some reason I don't have this next record written in my car boot notebook, but I'm fairly certain that it cost a pound.

Christmas And James Last (1973)

Christmas And James Last is one of several Christmas LPs from this most prolific of easy listening bandleaders and composers, but the only one I've seen so far, despite the seemingly endless supply of J-La at car boots and chazzas.  It features mostly traditional tunes, plus four pieces written by "Hansi" himself, and is all instrumental except for the choir's charming but wordless contributions.  It isn't in his trademark "non-stop dancing" style, but many tracks segue into the next in a totally non-cheesy fashion, including a version of German folk song Heidschi Bumbeidschi known here as Cheidschi Bumbeidshi, which flows sweetly into German carol Tomorrow, Children Is The Day.

German cover art

The whole album is a thing of tinkling, swoonsome loveliness, stately in parts, but always giving off a warmth just perfect for December evenings by the fireside with a large Baileys.  Grab it if you see it, especially if it's only a pound!


Join me again tomorrow (Saturday the 17th of December) for Day 3 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016, this time for three albums by some country gents.  In the meantime you can hear me play over an hour's worth of all-vinyl Christmas music on the Car Boot Christmas cloudcast via the player below, or click the link to hear it on the Mixcloud page.


https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/

Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016 - Day 1

Welcome to Day 1 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016.  Over the next ten days, leading us up to Christmas Eve, we'll be looking at some of the seasonal records I've found at car boot sales and charity shops since the last countdown in December 2014.

We'll start with an absolute belter, The Ventures' Christmas Album, for which I paid an entire fiver (I know!) in April of this year.

The Ventures' Christmas Album (1965)

Don Wilson, Bob Fogle and the rest of the guys bring a touch of summertime to Christmas, packing twelve festive standards into under half an hour of glorious surf rock instrumentals.  Each one has a snippet of a 60s pop hit expertly melded to it, so Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer opens with the unmistakable riff from 'I Feel Fine', their wonderful rendition of Blue Christmas has the Searchers' 'When You Walk In The Room' lick applied, and one classic meets another on Sleigh Bells where their own 'Walk, Don't Run' appears throughout.


The sleeve notes talk about the adaptations the group made to these well known songs "to suit their own power-packed style".  This youthful power, the twang-tastic racket it produces, added to the sleigh bells a-go-go from start to finish, make this jingle bell rock an essential December listen.


Bought from a charity shop and sent to me by a dear chum (thanks Matt!) is Mary's Boy Child: The Christmas Album by Boney M.

Boney M - Mary's Boy Child: The Christmas Album (1981)

Known throughout the rest of the world simply as "Christmas Album", the extra bit in the title was added to the UK version due to the success of the single Mary's Boy Child/Oh My Lord, a medley of the Harry Belafonte song and and one written by BM mastermind and real male vocalist Frank Farian, which sat atop the chart for four weeks in 1978. 

International sleeve

The album is just how you'd expect it to sound: lightweight melodic Europop with a mildly Caribbean flavour.  Things are upbeat and feelgood for the most part (Jingle Bells, a reggae-lite White Christmas, José Feliciano's Feliz Navidad), with most of the second side given over to more solemn fayre such as the boldly named Christmas Medley, the much-covered When A Child Is Born, and a version of Handel's "Tochter Zion" translated to Zion's Daughter.  The solemnity doesn't last though; the album ends with the bouncy bubblegum of I'll Be Home For Christmas - no, not that one, but a song written by Farian, who also supplies the lead vocal (under Bobby Farrell's name of course).

An enjoyable record, its effect is probably best summed up by the following customer review on Amazon:

"I bought a Xmas (sic) vest and actually danced with my mom."

There can be no higher recommendation for a Christmas record!


You can hear tracks from both of these albums and much, much more on Car Boot Christmas 2016, over an hour's worth of vinyl-only car boot and chazza Christmas tunes introduced and played by yours truly.  Use the player below to stream, or click on the link to go directly to it on Mixcloud.  It's totally family-friendly (no swears), and your shares and likes will be much appreciated.

Don't forget to come back tomorrow (Friday the 16th of December) for Part 2 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown and two more albums.


https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/

Teenage Wildlife

Rooting through a box of records at a car boot sale in May last year I enquired as to their price, only to be told by the very nice lady seller that they were "Two pound for the big 'uns, a pound for the little ones".  I bought two "big 'uns", the first of which was Reproduction, the debut album by The Human League.

The Human League - Reproduction (1979)

Reproduction came out in 1979, before Martyn Ware and Ian Marsh split to eventually form Heaven 17, and pre-dating the addition of vocalists Susan Ann Sulley and Jo Catherall.  It's an austere album with equally bleak song titles e.g. Circus Of Death, State Human, Blind Youth, the latter containing the dreadful couplet,

"Dehumanisation is such a long word,

It's been around since Richard the third".

Yikes!  The mood is overwhelmingly dystopian, with themes of fear, isolation, frustration and disappointment explored.  Although dark in tone there's sufficient melody, and it ends with the restrained minimalism and sweet bleeps of Morale... You've Lost That Loving Feeling, a deadpan but surprisingly effective cover version.

Reproduction didn't chart on release but climbed to no. 32 when reissued in August 1982 on the back of singles The Sound Of The Crowd and Love Action from the upcoming Dare. 1980's Travelogue also returned to the album chart.

The second big 'un, also two pounds, was released the following year:

David Bowie - Scary Monsters..... And Super Creeps (1980)

Scary Monsters..... And Super Creeps returned David Bowie to the charts in 1980, following the critically lauded but relative commercial failure of the Berlin trilogy.  The phrase "his best since Scary Monsters" has been trotted out in reviews of his albums ever since, probably for good reason, as it's pretty blimming great.

It opens with the sound of a film projector, a "one-two, one-two-two", then the voice of Michi Hirota speaking Japanese, the English translation of which Bowie shrieks back at her; "Silhouettes and shadows, watch the revolution, no more free steps to heaven, it's no game".  What follows is a dense art rock, glam-pop revolution, shot through with astringent percussion and Robert Fripp's squawking guitar.  Bowie's past is referenced time and again; Scream Like A Baby features Laughing Gnome vocals, Major Tom makes his return in Ashes To Ashes, and the intro to Panic In Detroit also returns during Up The Hill Backwards - but backwards!

Side 1 is ridiculously good, so the second half was always going to be a let down, however accomplished.  The weakest link is a cover of Tom Verlaine's Kingdom Come, but by any other standard Side 2 is still excellent overall.  Teenage Wildlife, with its dig at the new wave movement set to a "Heroes"-echoing backdrop, encapsulates the way in which Bowie uses his past to reflect on the present.  His first broadcast of the new decade concludes with an exhausted reprise of It's No Game featuring Pete Townsend on guitar and ending with the sound of the projector's tape cascading noisily onto the floor.

During another May car boot sale last year I picked up a few records from a stall selling them at 3-for-£5, always a good way of shifting stock quickly.  One of those in the stack I bought was True Jit by Zimbabwean group Bhundu Boys.

Bhundu Boys - True Jit (1987)

Now signed to Warner Bros, this was their first major label release following a pair of albums on Discafrique Records.  It was seen as a departure from their original sound, with lyrics in English as well as their native Shona, plus the incorporation of more Western-sounding production.  The follow-up Pamberi was even less well received and then a series of terrible disasters befell the group, including the deaths of three members from AIDS-related illness.

I can't comment on their earlier work, but I really like this album; its ringing guitars, infectious polyrhythms and cheery brass make for great summer listening, whether or not they in fact constitute true jit.

I've been building up my 70s Elton John collection over the past year, and I bought Rock Of The Westies a few months ago for £1.

Elton John - Rock Of The Westies (1975)

This was Elt's 10th album and his last studio release on Dick James Records (and MCA in the US) before joining his own label Rocket Man Records the following year in time for the release of Blue Moves.  It reached no.1 in the US, as did lead single Island Girl.  The inner sleeve sports amusing bios of all eight band members, including Caleb Quaye, half-brother of Finley.

Inner sleeve

Elton's reads,

"A boring little musician who has risen to fame without the aid of payola.  He only has four chords ('People' Magazine) and he is prone to getting fat at Christmas.  Supports Watford (H-E-L-P!)."

Inner sleeve

The album is a rockular affair with just two ballads, and some sterling riffs and solos from guitarists Quaye and Davey Johnstone.  It isn't as tight or as driven as Captain Fantasic, and must have come as a bit of a letdown after its immense predecessor, but considering it arrived just five months later this can be forgiven.  In any case it's a decent addition to his 70s canon, and very much worth having.

At a car boot last month I found a very nice crop of 1970s albums, all in lovely condition and reasonably priced.  One of them was Derek and the Dominos In Concert, and it cost £3.

Derek and the Dominos In Concert (1973)

This double LP was recorded over two nights at New York's Fillmore East in 1970, and consists of long jams and shorter cuts (not that short, though - the briefest is Presence of the Lord at 6:10) ranging from energetic, soulful, and dare I say it even funky R&B, to Clapton's familiar slow blues rock.  The powerful rhythm section of Carl Radle on drums and Jim Gordon on bass drive things along, with Clapton's thankfully widdle-free guitar supported by Bobby Whitlock's invigorating playing on piano and Hammond (I do love an organ).  It may be an Allman-free zone, but I'm thankful it's also free from the over-familiar Layla.  Be warned, though, there's a veeeeeeery extensive drum solo on Let It Rain, but despite this, the 17 minute long version remains astonishingly good.  Six of the nine tracks were later included on 1994's Live At The Fillmore, along with four other recordings.


I'll end with a record I bought last summer for a pound, Tamala Meets Tijuana by the Tequila Brass:

The Tequila Brass - Tamla Meets Tijuana (1971)

When Tamla met Tijuana they seemed to get on quite well, as this Music For Pleasure recording by the usual anonymous session musicians isn't half as bad as I'd hoped feared.   Despite the tacky cover it's one of the more restrained examples of the genre, beginning with a very smooth How Sweet It Is and an equally Easy Tracks of My Tears.  The version of My Guy is more comical with a 70s sitcom theme kind of vibe, and The Happening, which opens Side 2, is a great fit for the Tijuana treatment.  Not so Dancing In The Street, which due to the nightmarish arrangement doesn't sit happily at all, but luckily it's followed by another Supremes winner Stop In The Name Of Love, which works really well within the format.

The album can be found for mere pence on Discogs, and if you've a taste for Tijuana or a penchant for parping, this groovesome disc belongs in your collection, filed under 'C' for cheese.

The sleeve notes boast of Tamla Meets Tijuana, "A more exciting combination would surely be difficult to find".  They've obviously never heard the Torero Band's Tijuana Nursery Rhymes.