Friday 4 July 2014

Controls - "Rampant Silliness at the Pavillion" (Stupid Rabbit Tapes) 1979

Is this The Roxy? The Vortex? CBGB's? No, its that hotbed of raw pounding Punk Rock, The Basinbourne Pavillion; the scene of this seminal performance from Controls in 1979.

After Keine Namen came The mighty Controls, which contained the more musicianly elements of their predecessors. Of course,you are all aware of the Controls monolithic (with emphasis on the Mono bit) back catalogue on Stupid Rabbit Tapes?.....if not click HERE to be enlightened.
We thought that was all, but no, from the vast archives of Tim Naylor, head bass abuser of Controls, we have this live document from 1979. They treat us to some cover versions, that are probably better than the originals; in the case of Rebel Rebel at least. There’s even a rare cover version of probably the greatest song of allllll time, “Public Image”; who would even dare to attempt it? In the great DIY tradition, it is deconstructed, and reconstituted as a one and half minutes of barely controlled bass clawing, droning guitar, and drums that sound like cardboard boxes.
Then there’s the original numbers, like the magnifique “I’ll be your Electric Chair”, which is sublime, rock’n’roll in all its raw innocent glory. Apparently, they only played this live once!?
Some people say this is an incompetent racket, but they are blind to honesty, deaf to charm, numb to youthful energy/passion, speak dead words, and most importantly, have no access to the universal energy field that only the truly open can channel. This happens in moments like this, when a ‘crap punk’ (this is a new genre for you genre junkies out there)band lets itself free from the mind forged manacles of the accepted wisdom.
If this sounds like some pretentious prattling about something unimportant, then , in the words of the great Don Van Vliet, “You’ve had too much to think”. Now go away and take a long look in the mirror, and come back and listen with your third ear. Feel the energy that turned the nuclear waste of exploded stars into US! (Ok so i was bored! But it sounds vaguely philosophical dunnit?)......yes this tape is a message from the Godhead.

Tim Naylor says this:

"Rampant Silliness at the Pavilion....
recorded over a few weekends in July and August 1979 - some tracks as three piece some as four piece.  This was the period we morphed from being Bright Young Things to Controls and some of these tracks would have been recorded as BYT, but not the track Bright Young Things , confusingly, because Jon's rhythm guitar is evident.  He also sings Rebel Rebel and plays on an early version of Invited Few.
We did the cover versions as a three piece (best described as enthusiastic interpretations) because we thought it would help us get some gigs because we were writing all our own material and no one wanted to know.  And surprisingly it did the trick... the Albert Street Social Club and Prince of Wales gigs resulted.  The 'Electric Chair' song also appeared here for one time only - we never played it again and had obviously been listening to a PIL a lot that week...There were about twenty copies of this produced and handed out to venues like those above, the local tech and schools and pubs.  It follows the typical Controls sound quality (bee in a tin etc)."

Track Listing:

1 Silver Machine
2 I want to be Your Electric Chair
3 London Lady
4 Public Image
5 Anarchy in the Pavilion
6 Bright Young Things
7 Invited Few
8 Rebel Rebel (Bonus Track)

DOWNLOAD this silliness HERE!

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