Saturday 27 May 2017

Essential Logic - "Beat Rhythm News (Waddle Ya Play?) (Rough Trade ROUGH 5) 1979



Oh look, its the album my brother bought me for xmas 1979!....what a classic, and one of the few albums i know all the words to. Very rarely have i had the opportunity for a sing-a-long with anyone using this material. I managed a Residents sing-a-long one time, with future members of Volcano The Bear, and a great acappela version of 'Frankie Teardrop' with some acquaintences in a pub; but no-one has ever been up for an Essential Logic medley!?
Someone has described this band as Van Der Graaf on heat in the comments section of the Punilux 'Laughing Academy' post, and that ain't far off. Maybe on Helium mixed with Nitrous Oxide and 'crack' is more appropriate?
William Bennett of Whitehouse (no links to whitehouse stuff,because he asked me to remove all the posts!...but if you ask.....?) was in this band,incredibly! And he is the uncredited bass player on seven of the nine tracks on this album...which, incidentally, he claims he co-wrote.....and i kinda believe him.After this album they definitely became very watered down.(I blame Laura Logic's Buddhism trip,that got even worse by the time of her 'solo' album a couple of years later).
Its another example of the prog influence in post punk, and a very welcome influence it is too. 

Tracklist:
Quality Crayon Wax OK
The Order Form
Shabby Abbott
World Friction
Wake Up
Albert
Alkaline Loaf In The Area
Collecting Dust
Popcorn Boy (Waddle Ya Do?)


5 comments:

Unknown said...

Excellent stuff, one of the few albums I bought as a kid in school that I still love today. The earlier 12" Virgin EP was also very good with slightly different versions of two of the songs from this LP (but I reckon anyone bothering to read this knows that already!). Would love to hear some live stuff if any recordings exist, the only full gig recording I know of is from the Beat The Blues Festival in 1980 and is on Youtube. Some twot decided to cut out the between song banter though which is often as interesting as the music. Thanks again Jonny Z for another winning post!

Jonny Zchivago said...

Twot indeed.
No i haven't got any live stuff like the twot I am!....i'll keep my ears open for some
The next post has all the Essential Logic singles and EP's, right up to when they ceased as a band and just became Lora Logic, and consequently uninteresting.

Henk Madrotter said...

Wow thanks!!! This was one of the many albums we used to play at Jan's house, where we recorded all the Prutsers stuff, many memories, thanks!!!

Unknown said...

Gracias por la reseña. Vaya, no escribo bien el inglés, pero quería dejar mi comentario de todas formas.
Me gustó tanto el álbum, que busqué la forma de descargarlo, y aquí pude. Pero además de eso, que pasada con tu parte final. Mientras oía el disco pensaba en lo mismo, "que influencia prog que tiene esta banda", y seguía oyendo las canciones y no me abandonaba esa sensación. El prog y el post punk con la voz de Lora, que fenómeno.
Espero que puedas postear más grupos con esta influencia. Saludos.

Richie Muster said...

Gradely, la'!