Saturday 5 July 2014

Cleaners From Venus ‎– "On Any Normal Monday" (Man At The Off Licence) 1982

The thing about Punk Rock/DIY ethos, is the assumption that anyone can do it. If you wanna make an Industrial record, this is as simple as getting a few recordings from off the Tele, a cheap synth and and an FX unit set to the echo setting; read some W.S. Burroughs, and try to sound like Throbbing Gristle. You will invariably end up with a half decent 'Industrial' cassette to release on your own label. Now, what is really difficult, and actually takes (cough), some talent!?......is writing melodic pop songs. You can't shit out a memorable melody line just like that you know! You need that famous X-Factor,'songcraft'; and Cleaners from Venus had this in buckets. Nearly every song on their first four or five cassettes was a Lo-fi pop classic; some more classic than others, but definitely superbly crafted Pop music. The fact that these songs were hidden away on a bunch of obscure, hand coloured DIy cassettes, make them even more admirable. This is, for want of a better genre, 'Proto-Indie', but still retaining those DIY Punk ideals. They could have been The Smiths if it weren't for some obvious scruples; although these seemed to go missing around 1987, when they re-recorded some 'greatest hits' for RCA!........nobody's perfect? 

Tracklist:
   
Light Side 

A1 Night Starvation 
A2 Tukani (Monday Is Grey) 
A3 A Girl With Cars In Her Eyes 
A4 I Can't Stop (Holding On) 
A5 Living On Nerve Ends 
A6 I Wanna Do That   

Heavy Side 

B1 European War 
B2 Hungry Day 
B3 F.U.N. 
B4 Be An Idiot Pop Star 
B5 Spirit Of Youth In Flames 

DOWNLOAD on any normal monday HERE!

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