Shoes For Industry ‎– "Talk Like A Whelk" (Fried Egg Records ‎– FRY1) 1980

The most boring band I ever saw live came from Bristol.......no it wasn't "Shoes For Industry"; I'm talking about the dreadful Massive Attack.
Shoes For Industry are the very opposite of Massive Attack; talented tune-smiths who write their own stuff instead of nicking it,and can actually perform it, and, most importantly,they have a sense of humour. You never saw these chaps pictured in half light looking mean and moody with a backdrop of recent technology; taking oneself too seriously isn't an attractive quality, especially if you're a boring fucker.
I suspected the lead singer,Paul Bassett Davies, was a frustrated comedian, and lo and behold he seems to have carved out a reasonably successful career for himself as a comedy script writer and novelist.Even winning....gulp...'awards'!?
However the award he is winning this evening, as one of Shoes For Industry, is in the third best band from Bristol ever, category, in which they beat Massive Attack by at least a couple of hundred places.
No doubt there will be persons in the comments section telling me how fantastic 'Blue Lines' is? Well don't bother 'cus you're wrong!
There are few songs to rival "Invasion Of The French Boyfriends" for satirising European stereotypes, both in its accurate description of the swarthy French libertine, and the British sense of inadequacy in the realms of romance. All this and managing to be genuinely funny too, an art-form that seldom achieves its goal.
There are plenty of clever and funny moments hidden in the lyrics of this, their sole long player.I'm rather fond of "The War Of The Potatoes".......who won that war? I hear you ask......I don't know!....I'm paraphrasing again, so download the album and find out.
It's definitely NOT boring!

Tracklist:

A1 The War Of The Potatoes
A2 Fear Of Wages
A3 Invasion Of The French Boyfriends
A4 Jerusalem
A5 Depilation
A6 Shell Shock
B1 Violent Stabbing With A Knife
B2 The Changeling featuring Devil Dogs and Slave Of Love
B3 Talk Like A Whelk

DOWNLOAD it you whelk HERE!