The Stranglers And Friends – "Live In Concert, Rainbow,London 1980"

Oooh Look! A one-off collaboration for two 1980 live concerts by The Stranglers from the spring of 1980. Naughty Hugh Cornwell was in Pentonville Prison for drug possession. With two gigs scheduled at the London Rainbow for 3 & 4 April, the management decided to turn things around by approaching a number of well-known artistes to fill in for the absent Cornwell on vocals and guitar.

However,what is notable about the various guest appearances is the number of deceased individuals on one stage.....not deceased at the time one has to note, but recently deceased, as in the case of Jet Black,Nik Turner ,Nicky Tesco and ,my guitar and sartorial hero, Wilko Johnson. 

There are other less recently deceased artistes of course, like Ian Dury and Larry Wallis,but mainly we're concentrating on the new wave of dead pop-stars,wot I have wrote about in the last few posts,with the exception of Wilko Johnson,for whom I couldn't find any words to express this great loss!

He being the only musician I know of who has a spoonerism for his nom des plumes. I also could not find anything (good) he did that I haven't already posted before.....that is, until discovering his guest spot on these live recordings by a Hugh Cornwell-less Stranglers. Nestling uncomfortably alongside Robert Fripp and his terrifying wife, Toyah......later to haunt us all with their insufferable social media appearances....another dreadful consequence of the Co-Vid Lockdown.....among various Pub legends,skids,blockheads and ex-proggers. Sure enuff an impressive turn out,and a more interesting way to listen to the Stranglers back catalogue. One of the few Tribute albums that actually features the band who are the subject of the tribute.

Farewell Wilko.

Tracklist:

1 Introduction by Jet Black 1:53

2 Get A Grip
Guitar – John Ellis, Robert Smith
Vocals – Hazel O'Connor 3:42

3 Hanging Around
Guitar – John Ellis , Robert Smith
Vocals – Hazel O'Connor 4:09

4 Tank
Guitar – John Ellis , Robert Fripp
Vocals – Pete Hammil 3:03

5 Threatened
Guitar – John Ellis , Robert Fripp 3:21

6 Toiler
Guitar – John Ellis , Robert Fripp
Vocals – Phil Daniels 5:19

7 The Raven
Guitar – Basil Gabbidon, John Ellis
Vocals – Pete Hammil 4:30

8 Dead Loss Angeles
Guitar – John Ellis, Wilko Johnson
Vocals – Phil Daniels 2:18

9 Nice'N'Sleazy
Guitar – Basil Gabbidon , John Ellis
Saxophone – Nik Turner
Vocals – Nicky Tesco 6:44

10 Bring On The Nubiles
Guitar – John Ellis, Wilko Johnson
Vocals – Richard Jobson 4:00

11 Peaches
Guitar – John Ellis , John Turnball
Saxophone – Davey Payne
Vocals – Hazel O'Connor, Ian Dury, Toyah Wilcox 4:34

12 Bear Cage
Guitar – John Ellis , John Turnball
Keyboards – Matthew Hartley
Saxophone – Davey Payne
Vocals – Hazel O'Connor, Ian Dury, Toyah Wilcox 4:41

13 Duchess
Guitar – John Ellis
Vocals – Toyah Wilcox 2:44

14 No More Heroes
Guitar – John Ellis
Vocals – Richard Jobson 3:49

15 Five Minutes
Guitar – Larry Wallis
Vocals – Richard Jobson 4:13

16 Something Better Change
Guitar – John Ellis , Steve Hillage
Vocals – Toyah Wilcox 3:43

17 Sewer
Guitar – John Ellis , Steve Hillage
Vocals – Jake Burns 7:36

DOWNLOAD from over the rainbow 1980 HERE!

Squad – "Red Alert" (Squad Records – SQS 1) 1978

And now Terry Hall also, has succumbed to the 'thing' that makes life utterly fucking pointless.... Death.

He did have a talent for conveying such pointlessness within his vocal style coupled with his natural deadpan presence.

Never a fan of The Specials meself,, however i did see them supporting The Clash with Suicide when they were the Coventry Automatics. blah blah fucking blah!

Oh sweet jesus, never has there been a band where the Tonic suited,Fred Perry and Pork Pie hat decorated audience all thought they were in the band,and Danced to order as their idols commanded.

Lots of Punky Bands started to bark shite like "Why aren't you Dancing" to the crowd....because we don't fucking want to??? If we wanted to dance we'd go to a bloody Discotheque wouldn't we? I'm here for the existential angst and the freedom to spill beer in the melee thanks. The Specials or Joy Division.....I know Where I'd rather be.

However musically not my thing Two Tone may have been,or not been, they were completely DIY in execution.,and incredibly successful at it.!?

Terry, was in the early line up for Coventry Punk Rockers "Squad"...whether it's 'The' Squad and not just the contracted version I dunno,but it was fashionable for record labels to drop the "The" at the beginnings of Band Names,like when Virgin insisted that The Ruts had to be called, just ,"Ruts", to be cool enuff for Richard Branson.

Terry was there, in "Squad", for about five minutes;but long enough to get a writing credit for "Red Alert",I don't think he got recorded, but the singer on the plastic does sound uncannily like him....Gus Chambers, who,i am told,is also deceased!? From imbibing  an accidental cocktail of his medication and alcohol...not recommended.

In fact "Squad" are a fine example of no-one is bigger than the team,as the line-up was totally different for their second,less charming, single as compared to the original line-ups...including terry, who went onto pastures during the first ten minutes of "Squad's" existence....presumably joining the Coventry Automatics, aka Special aka. 

As there were several bands called "Squad" in the UK, they could have had interchangeable personnel if only they knew of each others  being. 

Concrete Fly-overs, Lady Godiva , and Two Tone is what Coventry is known for, and Terry is part of that forever,the pleasant chap he apparently was....hopefully still is?

No, I don't own this record...its as rare as Hens Teeth.

ps....i'm gonna have to change tack...this is getting dee-pressing!

Tracklist:

A Red Alert
B £8-A-Week

DOWNLOAD and sound the alert...life ain't a permanent condition!? HERE!

Ashra – "New Age Of Earth" (Virgin – V 2080) 1977

 Now that everybody has posted "E2-E4 as a tribute to the recently dead Krautrock guitar hero Manuel Gottsching,and claimed it as the year zero of Trance....whatever the fuck Trance is? Sounds like House music to me; the genres of which I have no clue or indeed interest. The chess referenced record in question,apart from being rather boring,is just standard Berlin-School type kosmiche with the swirly bits taken out,to a hypnotic drum box beat......is it the drum box that they think started the madness that remains virtually unchanged for the preceding thirty years.This was what happened to nature after the pre-cambrian period,fast evolution then stasis.The dinosaurs remained unchanged for 10's of millions of years,just like House music variants; Gottschings ambient musings are the pre-cambrian oceans of electronics,but "E2-E4" is the dinosaur.

Most of Gottching's pre-cambrian guitar virtuosity is already available elsewhere on this blog,so as my tribute I have selected this shimmering ambient rock flotation tank muzak outing by Manuel as Ashra, dropping the Tempel part,and also dropping the band. Which is fitting as now all the original line-up of Ash Ra Tempel have now departed consciousness.

The cover looks unerringly like one of the world trade centers relocated to the outskirts of Auschwitz,beaming its truth like an enormous obelisk created by the alien god figure who began this experiment billions of years ago to discover the answer to the ultimate question. This rather disappointed 'God' has just begun to realise that it was all just a complete waste of telly-time. It was all predicted in the BBC comedy series "Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy".......of course it's 42, innit....its the best answer I've ever heard.......and this LP is just north of 42 minutes long! If that ain't proof i dunno what is...

Anyway Manuel knows the answer, or lack of one, by now,if consciousness exists post-mortem for long enough to know this....probably something really boring like eternal nothing ,ness,more nothing than the nothing we think nothing is right now...ness. And the only way this big Nothing gets to actually BE Nothing, is if creatures like Homo-erectus part four have evolved to actually see and measure the nothing-ness before they blow themselves up;

Nothingness does indeed need defining boundaries before it can be defined....but, does that make it a something?

In fact even referring to nothing as nothing makes it a something.Even thinking about it proves it exists,as quantum reactions only happen when no-one's looking.

So is the only answer mankind can ever offer be 'God',the nothing that pretends its something,but only in the minds of men....homo-erectus.

Tracklist:

1.Sunrain 7:26

2.Ocean Of Tenderness 12:36

3.Deep Distance 5:46

4.Nightdust 21:52

DOWNLOAD this new age of death HERE!

The Stranglers - "Demo's 1974-76" (a Die or DIY? Compilation)

This comes under the category of groups who were social suicide to admit you like back in the halcyon daze of the Punk Rock wars of 1977. Basically they were obviously a lot older than a Punk Rock group should be,they had a keyboard player,and half of them looked like the kind of Pub trash you'd find in 1975,mustaches,suits and beards,like background extra's on the Sweeney.......not stylish Sweeney extras like Dr Feelgood,or The Pirates,but the ones who'd get beaten up by Jack and George to get information.

This may not sound like it, but this is an obvious attempt a a tribute for erstwhile Stranglers drummer and Ice Cream saleman, Jet Black, who passed away yesterday-ish at the remarkable age of 84!? He was older than Paul McCartney,and was 40 in 1978! This guy lived through the entire history of Rock'n'Roll! That's him with the beard and portly stance...was this the only Beard in Punk Rock?

Yeah, I secretly dug the Stranglers, most especially JJ Burnel, whose Bass sound and playing launched a tidal wave of Lead Bassists on the country, and made Post-Punk a reality. Unbeknownst to me Jean Jacques was an accomplished classical guitarist before he fatally thumbed a lift from Jet Black in his ice cream van,and ended up in The Stranglers in 1974. Yes that 1974, which Ramones fans always quote as evidence that they were indeed the very First Punk group......they did "I wanna be your Boyfriend" and the Stranglers did "Go Buddy Go" that year,and displayed uncomfortably long hair,....but, the Stranglers had less long hair,and were noticeably more aggressive.

They were in fact part of a very Proto-Punky movement,which fit their image far more than the glammed up MC5 or The Stooges, Pub Rock....of which one could argue that the Damned,Clash and The Pistols were also part of.

Nowadays, as Jet's Guardian Obituary states, The Stranglers were (accidently) the very First Post-Punk band, as well as tenuously the First Punk Band, with their "Darker" album, "Black and White",from 1978, beating previous favorites , Magazine, and Siouxsie and the Banshees to the title....which is a recently tendered attempt at rewriting history,by burks like John Robb and his equivalents  ,while forgetting  in retrospect,all this was still referred to as 'Punk'music at the time,and only later were things reassigned,depending on your definition of what its supposed to be.

For me, it was always the music that came after the first wave which obviously wasn't three chord Punk,like XTC,Devo,Talking Heads etc...which also included the 'Darker Side' like Joy Division ,Bauhaus, Pere Ubu etc.

"Punk Rock said Fuck You, and Post-Punk said I'm Fucked" has become the catchphrase these days.

So allow me to pick my own first Post-Punk album, and it ain't the Stranglers,or Television.....it's obviously Ultravox innit? "Ha! Ha! Ha!" from 1977....ticks all the boxes for me.

So to celebrate Jet's very understated underplayed drumming as part of one of the most un-categorisable  group from the Punk Rock era, here's a load of slightly dodgy pre-punk demo's from the magical year of 1974 onwards!?

I once thought "Go Buddy Go" was cover version when one first heard it,and was sure it had to be a UK R'n'R classic by someone like Johnny Kidd,until i knew better.....a JJ Burnel composition no less!?

Also the first time I saw a 'Punk' group on the telly was Stranglers doing 'Go Buddy Go' on Top of the Pops....the A-side,Peaches, was banned of course....tee hee hee...they swapped instruments.....and there may have been a rather naughty expletive on Burnel's T-shirt. However,JJ's hair looked a bit too fluffy for my liking,obviously just had a shampoo in the BBC make-up dept before the performance.

Jet, as always stayed in the background,gently miming his drums,which always sounded mimed anyway,so why bother?

Tracklist:

1. Charlie Boy*

2. Chinatown*

3. Make You Mine*

4. My Young Dreams*

5. I Know It*

6. White Wedding*

7. Country Chaser*

8. Bouncing man*

9. Wasted*

10. Go Buddy Go*

11.Strange Little Girl*

12.Bitching#

13.Peaches#

14.Tomorrow Was the Here after#

15.Down In The Sewer#

16.Grip#

*1974

#1976

DOWNLOAD a demostration of jet's ability to not be black HERE!

Fleetwood Mac – "Bare Trees" (Reprise Records – K 44181) 1972

With a cover like it houses an Ambient Doom miesterwerk, this forgotten soft rock classic from a lost version of former UK Blues giants, Fleetwood Mac,finds our hero's searching,yet failing, for that elusive 'New',Saucy jack, direction that most groups from the 1960s strived for,but never found. Some were saved by having that career saving 'early death',like Jimi Hendrix for example, who was going downhill rapidly by 1970.

However, I find this a rather pleasant,if inoffensive listen ,and is my Fleetwood Mac record of choice.Showcasing, as it does ,the songwriting talent of the Late Christine McVie,to whom this is a back-handed compliment,she being one of the few members of the Mac who wasn't a complete tosser. 

The horrendous ego's of curly topped Lindsey  'I'm a Clash fan me' Buckingham and Stevie Nicks...I was always confused as to which one was which......the most dull rhythm section on planet earth,and Peter Greens narcissistic moral outrage. Also, forget yee not, that at the same time in 1972,recently former guitarist Jeremy Spencer joined the Children Of God cult,and released his ,quite mad but trad,children of God Cult Lp,as "Jeremy Spencer and The Children".There wasn't just one loony-tune in Fleetwood Mac at the end of the sixties.

All this eclipsed  Christine McVie's envious ability to be normal, and write a damn fine tune. All of the best tchoons in their successful period were hers I noticed, after watching a BBC 4 Rockumentary on said group......Of course I had nothing to do with Fleetwood Mac at all in my yoof,so it was a revelation that they had some rather tasty songs to back up the success!?

This Lp attracted my eye,for the cover basically,and playing it sometime in the 80's ,i was astonished at the mind crushing blandness of it all, reminding me of the good Captain's 'Bluejeans and Moonbeams, which I grew to love while swimming against the tide of hipster opinion......come on 'Observatory Crest' would have been a hit when Fleetwood Mac were selling their crud to the unquestioning masses, if it had been pushed.

I like the cool kid clearing qualities of stuff like this...it takes talent to be this beige,but we forget that's what was trendy back in those bland 'Singer-Songwritery' days of 1972.This is what did for the career of my other female songsmith hero,the long departed Sandy Denny,who probably didn't die early enough to save her career,and should have remained reassuringly, Folk.

In the end the only ones left standing after the brutal Adult orientated Singer-Songwriter wars of 1972/1973 were Fleetwood bloody Mac;who went on to reap the vast crops others had already sown.Above all of this is that their major rock'n'roll legacy contribution is proving that one should never,ever, work with your significant other.The same goes for Friends too incidentally. If you have to work with someone,Always,ALWAYS, work with complete strangers;or risk losing your loved ones.

The best tracks are by the outstandingly ordinary Christine,plus Mrs Scarrots "Thoughts On a Grey Day"!?,which ends proceedings,rather bizarrely with a zero Mac member monologue,narrated by someone called Mrs Scarrot...of whom i have have no idea?

Recently, all our favourite, and less favourite Pop Stars have been falling off the tree,which is looking increasingly bare as every week goes by.

I was trying,and struggling, to think of something poignant to write about my Guitar Hero, Wilko Johnson,when I heard the 'other one' from Fleetwood Mac had died too,so, as I was struggling to put John Wilkinson's brilliance into monosyllabic script(basically there are No Words!), I took a right turn to show that we're open minded on this blog in the tribute department,and say Rest In Peace Christine....the trees are certainly, almost bare.

Tracklist:

1.Child Of Mine 5:09

2.The Ghost 3:58

3.Homeward Bound 3:20

4.Sunny Side Of Heaven 3:10

5.Bare Trees 5:02

6.Sentimental Lady4:35

7.Danny's Chant3:16

8.Spare Me A Little Of Your Love 3:44

9.Dust 2:41

10.Thoughts On A Grey Day 2:03

DOWNLOAD these fallen leaves HERE!

Andy Matthews - "Spring (or 'Bog​-​shed in lock​-​down')" (Ah! Records) 2020

Here's a band that the recently 'Late' Anton Fier (Feer)definitely didn't play in, as did NOT Andy Matthews of, I am Informed, 'Ah! Records'.Officially the least successful record label of all time(there's a lot of competition for that accolade); so says Andy anyway,who,these days, posts his labels albums,Ep's,singles, etc on that lovely Bandcamp place thingy.

Do you remember Bog-Shed? Yes?...well you should if you read this blog,'cus everything they ever recorded is available HERE!

Why bring this lot up again I don't hear you ask?...'Tis because Mike Bryson, a bass wielder second only to the great JJ Burnel, has died but a couple of weeks ago.Therefore we are in tribute mode,especially as 75% of Bog-Shed are now ex-ex-members of the mighty Shed,and the human race in general.

Also, do you remember the 'lockdown'?...I, personally, had a great time,and business was booming.I didn't want it to end.

We all coped with it in our own very different ways,and Andy of Ah! made the bizarre but understandable decision to make a Bog-Shed tribute album.

Eclectic is the watchword here,with every viable pop song form utilised to transform 20 of the most un-famous Bog-Shed tunes into a smorgasbord of different styles and non-styles.

Andy explains this inexplicable oddity using words such as this: "to keep from going mad, and in keeping with the times and my role within them, I embarked upon a project of near-pointlessness."

Sounds like normal life to me?!

But more to the point,what a great group was Bog-shed...remember them this way.


Tracklist:

1.the amazing Roy North penis band 04:04
2.Champion love shoes 02:48
3.The fastest legs 02:42
4.Hell bent on death 02:59
5.I say no to lemon mash 00:05
6.Into me 05:22
7.Little car 02:39
8.loaf 02:59
9.oily stack 02:41
10.old dog new tricks 02:04
11.packed lunch to school 02:49
12.panties please 03:55
13.people equal greedy 02:40
14.raise the girl 03:59
15.runner on a blunder 03:29
16.sing a little jam 02:33
17.sing a little tune 02:54
18.Summer in my lunchtime 04:48
19.Thunderballs 02:56
20.Tommy Steele record 02:40

DOWNLOAD this once in a lifetime name your price offer HERE!

Mark Shreeve – "No Holes Barred" (Church Road Records - MCCR6) 1986

 

From the less precious end of the recent deaths in music trophy cabinet, comes one of the more 'successful' prime movers in the UK Electronic Underground of the early eighties; as epitomised by such labels as Colin Potters Integrated Circuit Records.

Mark Shreeve left world stage around the end of August this year,but again no one told me!? He features quite extensively in these pages,mainly for his DIY cred rather than his late period plinky plonky electronic Space rock and Jean MIchel Jarre-isms.

This self-released cassette shows us Marks jauntier side,with some largely inadvisable Prog Rock humour risk of recording Farts and Belches;as Roger Waters and Ron Geesin had an annoying penchant for.

Yes, Mark had just bought an Emulator Mark 1 in 1986, and there were certainly No Holes Barred for the prog novelty title track, where Mr Shreeve's Digestive Tract gets an unwelcome credit. Yeah, we all did it as soon as we got our old skool samplers out of their box? The Burp was utilised intermediately,with that generous 0.8 seconds of sampling time at the lowest Bit-Rate ......oh how we laughed....but at least we didn't sample the Dog,as Simon Cowell did early in his career disguised as "Wonder Dog",and his 1982 hit "Ruff Mix"...geddit? 

Although Cowell had access to £20,000 quids worth of Fairlight Aampling System to totally waste.....unlike Paul Hardcastles N.N.N.N.N.Nineteen,not?

Sad to say that Shreeve's "No Holes Barred" never cracked the top ten,unlike the previously mentioned atrocities did.

Personally I had to make do with my Commodore 64,equipped with a jolly expensive Sampling module attached at the back for my first sampling experience,which was, you guessed it, sampling a Burp!

Who needed a Fairlight in 1984 when you had this?...notice how none of the kids on the cover are sampling Farts or Burps.....obviously Posh Kids.

 

This was repeated several years later with a purchase of an Ensonique Mirage.You can't beat the old ones can you?

Well, there was one more Hole for Mark to use, unbarred to everyone, and that was his Grave.In which he now rests his plinky plonky fingers,and has given us all some much deserved peace.

I do however notice, that quite a few of these tracks do seem to harbor an unhealthy obsession with,...gulp... Death, 'the proud brother' as Criswell of 'Plan Nine from Outer Space' fame used to call it....a lot.

Shreeves' early work is rather good actually,if you like Tangerine Dream that is.

Tracklist:

A1 M.A.D. 4:33
A2 Crash Head (Early Mix) 4:05
A3 High Frontier 4:52
A4 Edge Of Darkness (Early Mix) 5:35
A5 Bandit 3:38
B1 Widowmaker 3:51
B2 One Last Cold Kiss 3:52
B3 Angel Of Death (Live) 11:08
B4 No Holes Barred 1:47

DOWNLOAD through the hole of this HERE!

The Golden Palominos – "A History: Vol. 1 (1982-1985)" (Mau Mau Records – MAUCD 625) 1992

Fuckin' 'ell Anton Fier,of virtually every band that was worthwhile in New York and Cleveland in the 80's bur primarily the mainstay of The Golden Palominos ,has also kicked the bucket;but in this case it was an 'assisted' bucket kicking in one of those dodgy 'non-profit' clinics in Switzerland,Dignitas innit? Of which I saw no mention anywhere.

He wasn't ill apparently. He just decided he'd had enough. He couldn't drum as well as he wanted anymore and said he felt he had achieved everything he wanted and it was time to go. I thought that kind of behavior was illegal if you weren't ill?...or was he? It's been a long time since he had a record out? Did he have some degenerative disease or summut? The drummer with Strobe Talbot has MS,and discovered that by forcing himself to drum,he could regain his cognitive abilities on said instrument......!?...Maybe Anton was a tad hasty with his decision to top himself at the age of 66! What's the point of suicide anyway, we have eternity to be be dead,and we were all dead for an eternity before we were born.Wrong decision Anton. There are plenty of children getting their heads blown off by a bunch of Russian Wankstains who would love to have swapped places.

The list of groups bands and soloists that Anton has added his drumming and artistic skills to is far too long,and boring to list here (Pere Ubu blah blah blah....),but the most Anton-centric of the lot has to be The Golden Palominos,who existed from 1981 to the twenty-teenies. So, as the best days of any band, are the early days, I have decided to post a compilation of the those very ''Early days when he wasn't in 'The Feelies'.

The understated, and under reported, method of his passing,was also a tribute to the man,having never sold out to the commercial opportunities of someone who could boast a Cv as long and comprehensive as Anton Fier's....you know I still dunno how to pronounce his name!?..insult or tribute, you decide.

Here's the legal Swiss  bumpf on assisted suicide from non-selfish motives.It's legal, if, for example, lethal drugs are prescribed and the intended recipient takes an active role in the drug administration? Sounds a bit dodgy to me, but who am I to stop anyone from deciding for themselves when they can end all this surreal madness at a time of their choosing.

He leaves us with a vast legacy of work,some of which is on this early nineties compilation,that even boasts Michael Stipe and John Lydon as guest vocalists,...i'll cease the name dropping and present to you this rather fancy compilation of some genuinely great downtown Noo yawk fancy-pants music...sophisticated and experimental,so you can bet yer bottom dollar that Bill Laswell is hanging out waiting for the photo ops...you know the crowd,Zorn, Lindsey, Laswell etc,the kind of downtown sophisticates that people like us should curtsy to if allowed within their golden auras. 

Quite a bit of the later tracks sound like that terrible PiL album,called 'Album'...mainly because it had...you guessed it Bill Laswell on it...and the drums, played by the late Anton himself,reminds one of the (uncredited) drumming on 'Album',which i had previously presumed was shared by twin legends,Tony Williams and Ginger Baker....by this evidence it was Anton Fier who did the drumming and skillfully avoided a credit in the process;and also why Lydon makes an appearance on this comp, from just around the time he was making that offending disc to confirm to himself,and those dumb enough to think Levene and Wobble made the music in PiL, his own genius....or lack of therein.

Tracklist:

1 Hot Seat
2 Under The Cap
3 Monday Night
4 Cookout
5 I.D.
6 Two Sided Fist
7 Boy (Go)
8 Clustering Train
9 Omaha
10 The Animal Speaks
11 Silver Bullet
12 (Kind Of) True
13 Buenos Aires
14 Only One Party

"Anton Fier is no longer playing drums." (Syd Straw)

DOWNLOAD the results of a life well spent HERE!

Low – "A Lifetime Of Temporary Relief - 10 Years Of B-Sides & Rarities" (Rough Trade – RTRADCDX195) 2004

After Keith Levene,and Nik Turner.Another from this week of Musical Deaths, is the sad loss of Mimi Parker,the lady from Low. The Husband and wife populated trio who gave us the much derided,even by Mimi and Alan, category of this kind of minimal melodic ambient neo folkrock,that has come to be called Slowcore. Which, personally, I reckon fits them to a 'T'. It's slow, and uncompromising....it's .Slowcore!?

I am of an age where my last flirtation with 'hip' music was around the time of Jungle and Post Rock in the late nineties, so I look upon Low as a fairly recent entity,and often overlook the fact that they've been going for nigh on thirty years....that is until this week,as Mimi died of Cancer. Robbing the world of her pure voice and minimalist drumming.

This vast compilation of their first ten years,was the last record i bought in England before i migrated to pastures new in jolly old France.....it's a bit shit here,but it's fucking cheap.We came as a family, and promptly started the process of disintegrating forthwith;such is the fashionable path we trod ,trés moderne.

Now all that's left is me and a house full of records,synths,and to quote Syd,Dust and Guitars.All of which one can simply turn off when they get on ones proverbials.You can't do that with humans I found out.....they have 'needs'....needs that someone on the spectrum can't give without an effort. Its all mi mi mi innit? I don't ask or expect anything that isn't offered.

A great soundtrack to emotional and mental breakdown and its aftermath has to be the melancholic splendor of Low......which is ironic, because they never broke up as a family,just losing a few Bassists along the way....always difficult creatures is yer Bass player.

They do remind one of such indie leg-ends as Young Marble Giants,and Galaxie 500, with a tad of Joy Division's more downbeat moments,as if fronted by English Folk great Shirley Collins....(Is Shirley Collins a Dame yet?...if not why?).

This compilation features all their rare bits from 1994 to 2004,and the demo versions of "Lullaby" and "Cut" from their flawless debut LP,are worth the price of admission alone;enhanced somewhat by swathes of automatic level cassette hiss,as if summoning the soul of Mimi back from the grave to haunt us a bit more.This IS White Soul music after all?

You may have noticed that i am being uncharacteristically respectful in this synopsis of a trendy american group,and i'm sorry, but Low were quite marvelous indeed. Not everything modern and american are wrong you know,he said,stating the bleeding obvious.

This came with a DVD documentary, which you can probably find on YouTube no doubt.

Although this horrified me! Low are one of those groups who shouldn't ever be seen on camera or in photographs; unless as blurred shadowy black and white images in an abandoned bunker somewhere in Alaska .Not that they're ugly or anything,it just doesn't fit the music.There were always far too many clear photo's of Joy Division for example,where we discovered that Ian Curtis always wore the same shirt and looked like Mr Bean...they should have only been photographed by Anton Corbijn,in dimly lit underpasses in winter.Young Marble Giants had this talent naturally.impossible to photograph without looking like they lived in Siberia.

Anyway,Rest in even more Peace that was portrayed in your beautifully depressing tunes Mimi.Hope to hear you again beyond the void one slow looong day? Thanks for all the temporary relief.

And to finish,... some jokey wordplay to lighten the mood......Its all Mi Mi Mi these days innit?

Tracklist:

Lullaby (Demo) 10:06
Cut (Demo) 5:41
Heartbeat 4:08
Peanut Butter Toast And American Bandstand 2:23
Tired 5:11
I Started A Joke 4:28
The Plan (Demo) 2:50
Prisoner (Demo) 6:10
Prisoner 3:48
Tomorrow One 4:28
Turning Over 7:49
Bright 2 1:45
Walk You Out 4:46
Tear Down 4:48
Standby 5:11
David & Jude 1:22
Cheek 3:24
Venus 3:44
Boyfriends & Girlfriends 6:06
Surf 2:31
No Need (Version 1) 5:03
Be There (First Version) 8:28
Lift 5:45
Joan Of Arc 3:21
Long Long Long 3:50
Lion/Lamb (Demo) 3:50
Will The Night (Demo) 2:47
Last Breath 4:47
Joan Of Arc (20 Below Mix) 3:25
Old Man Song 3:48
Try Try Try 0:37
Lord, Can You Hear Me? 6:24
Venus (Time Stereo Dub Mix) 3:51
Those Girls (Song For Nico) 3:06
[silence] 2:50
Words (In Misfits Style) 2:50
Turn (In Misfits Style) 1:03
Over The Ocean (In Misfits Style) 1:36
I Remember 3:22
Kindly Blessed 2:17
Blue-Eyed Devil 5:02
Sleep At The Bottom 4:54
When You Walked 3:55
Back Home Again 5:20
Don't Drop The Baby 4:02
Surfer Girl (Live) 3:35
Blowin' In The Wind 3:49
Open Arms 4:02
...I Love 2:45
Carnival Queen 5:13
Overhead 4:33
Don't Carry It All 4:13
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me 3:58
Because You Stood Still 5:33
Fearless 6:20
Shots & Ladders 2 6:47
Words 5:46
Shame 4:08
Over The Ocean 3:50
Looking Out For Hope 11:28
Will The Night 3:07
Weight Of Water 4:21
Don't Understand 6:56
Immune 3:31
Home 2:25
Dinosaur Act 4:07
Canada 3:49
Over The Ocean (Oosterschelde Version) 5:03
Canada 15:42
Two Step (Live At Bard College) 6:11
Soon (Live At Coolidge Corner) 7:38
I Remember (Live In Paris) 5:40
Closer Than That 1:06:11
In The Fishtank 16:50
Making Of Trust 17:34

DOWNLOAD from heaven HERE!

Public Image Ltd – "Commercial Zone" (PiL Records Inc. – XYZ-007) 1984

Recently Deceased  alleged guitar genius Keith Levene (alleged by himself mainly) who was responsible for stealing the tapes for Public Image Ltd's dodgy follow-up to the classic 'Flowers Of Romance' LP.,and remixing the results to make himself look even more like the feckless junkie he really was. The accepted wisdom is that "Commercial Zone" is far superior to the awful dross that was the official PiL fourth studio album, clumsily entitled, "This is what you want...This is what you get".....which I can now reveal to be incorrect.....we wanted Metal Box 2 but got "This is what you want...This is what you get" and "The Commercial Zone",in other words, the same album twice. (get Metal Box deluxe Edition Here!)

As horrified as I was back in 1984,as to how unapologetically 'Bad' this record by one of the greatest groups to have ever stalked this Earth ,was. I now have changed my mind. They are both quite awful in 1984 terms,but in 2022, they both sound rather otherworldly,and have aged like a budget bottom shelf wine.They just don't make 'em like this anymore! 

What on earth is that singer doing? A horrible throaty hi-pitched whine that seems to be singing the same tune in every song.Wasn't he in Those Sex Pistols once upon a time? How did it get to be like this?

The music IS Disco,but a Disco that no-one wants to dance to....which is,in fact, the best kind of Disco.

Keith Levine stole and released "Commercial Zone" after he was sacked from PiL so as not to endanger the group's lucrative Japanese tour due to his severe drug addiction. Revealing an album with no hits,even though "This Is Not A Love Song" was a massive worldwide smash,it really shouldn't have seen the light of day when comparing it to little Johnny Rotten Band's previous work.

However, having not listened to these two different versions of the same record after a good thirty years abstinence,I now find myself enjoying this confusingly disconnected art school drop-out funk ...with a singer who seems to be taking the piss out himself and the record buying public in general.

Previously, my opinion of John Lydon, and his post-1981 work followed, somewhat, the general direction of this rather malicious review of "This is what you want...This is what you get", by the NME's Biba Kopf, who got his/her claws out ruthlessly back in good ol' 1984:

"Dear John, the big kiss off:

This is what you want? Carry On Picking The Carrion Part Umpteen? Starring Johnny Rotten as Little Miss Understood, the world’s most self-righteous schoolmarm, whose once shrivelling, presently shrivelled, wit has tightened to a contstipated bowel that slowly and painfully emits squeaky sarcasms only capable of raising tears in 11 year olds? Or the frightening faithful class creep Martin Applecheeks back in line?
This is what you’re left with when you make a career of going against nature (only to be defeated by your own): a fixed scowl, a very limited public image indeed, intuition dried up, refinement beyond grasp, reduced by sloth to hiring studio morticians to cosmetise the corpse of a long dead idea, because you no longer care or have energy enough to be invigoratingly careless.
Now bored with testing the world against your whims you blame it, anyone else but yourself-it can never be your fault, can it? - for your loss of interest, loss of words, loss of vision; for your very deafness… But surely even you can feel the cheapness of the horrortronics permeating this record with the stink of the stale and the secondhand. Sudden sax squalls and thunderous drum breaks are hardly the things to blow it away.
For one whose chief pride has always been remaining true to yourself, I’m surprised your conscience so readily accepts your feeble reasoning. Just because you write a love song, there must be something wrong with the form? Obviously. And because your dwindling legion still stand by to watch the waning moon of your rotten talent, believing it will rise again, they must be thoroughly abused, thereby disabused of that sentimental notion? Naturally.
With you on the last point, Johnboy, and will reluctantly admit you a piddling victory. Your idiot finger wagging rhythm ’n’ entropy, exemplified by the bicker banter of the title ‘This Is What You Want This Is What You Get’, is crass and mediocre enough to complete your self-willed, pointless martyrdom. Congratulations. You’ve earned our contempt. Here it comes:
Wot a bloody stupid cackleshit asshole coyote lied-to done-in-good ’n’ rotten put-upon no-hope lumpenlard jackal knucklehead trickletalent pile of jokepuke you turned out to be. There ain’t enough copographers in the world to swallow your PiL in quantity enough to justify the cost any longer.

Piss off.

Biba Kopf, NME, 4th August 1984"

OUCH!?

Of course this kinda of intelligent funky stuff was ten a penny back in the eighties,and it got swallowed up in the swell of the tsunami,then dragged out to sea.But,all said, the Bad Life/Mad Max video is,and always was,and always will be, one of the best video's ever made,in my humble opinion.

And as much as I agreed with Bibs in 1984, I now have,predictably, the opposite view nowadays. It's a lump of 'lumpenlard jackal knucklehead' cypto-genius is what it is......it went really downhill from here however.

This blurb was supposed to be a tribute to the recently expired Keith Levene,to whom the much over-used word 'Genius' was often applied largely by...er...Mr Lydon a lot, and not by very many others save himself.

As his reputation is intrinsically linked to PiL's first two albums, it is partially true; but he was conspicuous by his smack induced absence on Flowers of Romance,and largely invisible on The "Commercial Zone" bootleg too.However, one must point to his highly unique contributions to "Theme" and "Public Image" (the single),which will echo deep into infinity and beyond with their shimmering perfection, and the inescapable irony of John's lyrics to "Theme"...."I wish I could Diiiiieeee".

Not sure Keef would appreciate the reality of such words wherever he may be in the eternal now,what was, and what should have been.

Rest In Peace Keef.....and hopefully there are no Drugs in paradise to fuck up the after-life too!

Tracklist:

Commercial Zone:

1 Mad Max 4:11
2 Love Song 4:27
3 Young Brits 3:40
4 Bad Night 3:29
5 The Slab 3:36
6 Lou Reed Part I 3:58
7 Lou Reed Part II 2:50
8 Blue Water 3:30
9 Miller High Life 2:38

"This Is What You Want...."

1 Bad Life
2 This Is Not A Love Song
3 Solitaire
4 Tie Me To The Length Of That
5 The Pardon
6 Where Are You?
7 1981
8 The Order Of Death

DOWNLOAD to get what you want HERE!

Inner City Unit – "Passout" (Self-Released Cassette) 1980

Yes, Nik Turner dies,so a  tribute post is almost obligatory in this day and age when celebrities are treated as friends and family more than yer actual friends and family are......that is,if you have any friends and family,which is doubtful if you're reading this.

I never saw Hawkwind with Turner in the line-up, but i feel as i must make a contribution to the memory of anyone who was in Hawkwind up to about 1980. Although I don't think I did anything for Lemmy, or the electronics one. I figure they were rather important, if the adjective 'Important' can be applied to anything 'Pop'. I didn't even really like any of the albums that Nik Turner was on, other than possibly Space Ritual. I'm strictly a Quark Strangeness and Charm man, flesh and blood.

Hawkwind, in all their era's and offshoots, were.....here we go again..."important"? They had obvious DIY qualities, and,more importantly they had a nude dancey lady with pendulous breasts, so obviously somethings gonna stand up to attention within a teenage boys body....that's right, his Ears!

I thought they were hippies until i saw them on Marc Bolan's kids TV show doing "Quark Strangness and Charm"....and Marc liked them, so that's good enough for me......but, again, Nik Turner wasn't in the group by then! Quiet a disagreeable fellow I hear, was Nik, so he had to go.

Therefore, we have Nik Turners Inner City Unit, who made their own cassettes in their early days, and sounded like one of those trendy 'punk' groups!? Although, noticeably,unlike other 'punk' groups with a saxophone in the line-up, Inner-city Unit got away with NOT being labelled Jazz-Punk, along with X-Ray Spex...and er.....Theatre of Hate?......and Neon Hearts...and....oh, in fact all punk groups with a sax except for The Cravats!?

They did some 'punked up' versions of Hawkwind Classics,such as Masters Of The Universe, and Brainstorm,but don't hold that against them.....leave that for the obligatory 'Punky Reggae' number that ends side 2....terrible.

RIP Nik Turner of ICU and Hawkwind,aged 82 !? That's older than Macca and Ringo!?

Tracklist:

A1 Space Invaders
A2 Watching The Grass Grow
A3 Polly Ethylene
A4 Solitary Ashtray
A5 O. B. City Muse
A6 Brainstorm
A7 Cybernetic Love
A8 Cars Eat With Auto Face
B1 Fallout
B2 Nuclear Waste
B3 Master Of The Universe
B4 Amyl Nitrate
B5 Help Sharks

DOWNLOAD some sax led punkadelia,'cus there ain't gonna be no more of it HERE!

Home Secretary - "That Wolf" (Bandcamp/Self-Released) 2022

Yet more Nu-DIY with collage artwork,by a pair of weirdo's from dat London innit?

This is the boys'......they have to be male of course...latest album....yes there's more if you sachet over to their Bandcamp page.......you can even buy one!?

The biggest influence on your blog trustee's young impressionable mind was pre-disco Cabaret Voltaire,and their obvious influence on legions of young lonely men in the newly born DIY scene back in 1979 and beyond. We discovered, thanks to the mum's attic loitering Cabs that to make music that was taken seriously,all that was needed was a couple of cassette recorders,one microphone, an echo box,and the cheapest synth you could find.

This all ended when Tascam and Fostex brought out those cassette multi-track machines,and everyone started to sound like Joy Divison or Swell Maps instead of Throbbing Gristle on a bad day.

Home Secretary, do a near perfect facsimile of those ker-azy antediluvian  days between 1979 and 1984, before the flood of competent home recording started to mirror the Sounds Alternative chart.

Cabaret Voltaire themselves succumbed to this over exposure to mid-range budget recording equipment,and started to make their ill-advised  version of Belgian Nu-Beat.....I even had problems with "Red Mecca"!. Home secretary are certainly pre Red Mecca,take that as a further recommendation then graft on some Shadow Ring.

Tracklist: 

1.were that what it was 04:06
2.the woe betide 02:26
3.you're doing that now 10:12
4.in Beefs 01:45
5.disappointed 00:52
6.something in his mouth 08:55
7.and how much 04:12
8.why the British army works 04:48
9.Mr Martian 04:08

Get yer free download or yer not free CD-r HERE!

Nick and the Nod - " Den Besten ep" (CHICKEN SHACK RECORDS CSRT010) 2022

Yes it's a modern era vinyl revival Nu DIY release on Bandcamp wot i'm doing here innit?

It certainly looks old skool DIY,with swathes of vintage DIY post Jamie Reid artwork...never bettered in my opinion.I wouldn't complain if every record had a cover like this Mo Fo, 'cus I'm a stick in the mud nostalgia peddler.......nowt wrong with that, 'cus i happen to think that a Francis Bacon painting should always remain a Francis Bacon Painting,and its imitators are just enlightened souls who know it cannot be bettered.

Can anything from the first five or six Fall albums ever be bettered?.....I severely doubt it fucking big time Boss. So, sadly, as we cannot count on any new Fall material being produced anytime soon this side of the great supernatural divide, then we must rely on the living to fill the void, and Nick and the Nod make a very listenable living version of a Fall demo tape,witha cheapo drum box replacing the irreplaceable Karl Burns.

"Solo Griswold", apart from reminding me of my now kaput Mutt, also called Griswold,reminds me very much so of the Track "Two Librans" from latter,early naughties period Fall "Unutterable" LP.....which suggest this guy or Guys have been listening to records while they wrote this very attractive package....always a fatal blow for self identity.

I think i did a review for that Posh southern version of the Fall who reckon they are DIY itself,The Cool Greenhouse.I did encourage them i suppose,and i'm gonna encourage this bunch too.

I mean, the word 'Kulak' is crying out for the M E. Smith treatment.I'm not sure that the man himself ever got there first or not?

Anyway, you scrounging illegal downloading bastards should get over to their bandcamp site and buy the remaining vinyl forthwith ,before its gone,...they were too kind to send me a clear vinyl copy for review purposes.....call it bribery,but i accepted it....and it had no bearing on my impartiality whatsoever .....even in a jury at a Trump trial I would remain impartial....er...well maybe not......he could be proven as innocent as the virgin mary and i'd still find the cunt guilty of anything...you name it...he did it!

Anyway, you can download it for 'F' all by clicking the link below,or better still get one of the strictly limited vinyl edition of 30,by clicking the very same bastarding link!?

Oh Yeah...this is a deal clincher...i got a free Chicken Shack Beer mat included in my bribe package...these are the kinda folk I like.

Tracklist:
1.R. Santos 01:33
2.Kulak Point Bliss 02:00
3.Face 01:39
4.Solo Griswold 03:27
5.KPBF 00:55

DOWNLOAD this and many others with this handy link thing HERE!

Wojciech Karolak – "Easy!" (Polskie Nagrania Muza – SX 1069) 1975

Cold war Polish Jazz on the Polish state-label with  jovial pop-art cover that sounds like the background music for"Bullitt" or "The French Connection". Anyone would think that they didn't want to be there?

Poland looked so much fun from this side of the Berlin Wall after all?

There were a few Polish Prog bands that were half decent , but 'twas Jazz that echoed through the scorched earth ruins of  post war Warsaw most.

Wojciech Karolak tinkles the ivories on this groovy soundtrack album desperately searching for a cop movie to be associated with.....but they didn't make funky cop movies in the communist bloc.Firstly there wasn't anything worth stealing,any criminals were either pre-emptively shot, poisoned or imprisoned without trial,and the state police all had the charisma of a cabbage....which would make for a very boring cop movie.One of the only countries,where the burglars break into museums or banks to put stuff back. 

And,to end,a fun fact? Just in case you didn't know , the Ring modulator & phasing were done by one Brian Taylor of England...whatever he was doing in Cold Cold war Poland we may never know.

Tracklist:

1.A Day In The City 5:20
2.(DACP 796) Endless Transit 4:10
3.Instant Groove 7:05
4.Strzeż Się Szczeżui 3:45
5.Easy 5:53
6.Why Not Samba 4:12
7.Seven Shades Of Blue 3:55
8.Goodbye 6:25

DOWNLOAD easily HERE!

Оризонт – "Оризонт(in Moldovan "Orizont")" (Melodia/Мелодия – С60-10691) 1978

 90% of all decent soviet music came from Estonia.The reason for this is geographical,just as it was for The Beatles.Access to the sea.In Estonia's case access to the right sea,namely The Baltic and the west,rather than being landlocked like Moldova.At best they could holiday on the Black Sea coast,which sadly meant being culturally locked in to the weird gypsyfied Eurasian way of doing things.That coupled with living in the wall-less prison of the former Soviet union,and missing out on the greatest renaissance of the arts since...well...er....the Renaissance.Leads us to explaining why this state sponsored slab of Moldavian library music Schlager Funk exists.

Indeed, we sophisticates of the west will laugh at the pure cheesy shitness of these records,but they do have a healthy vein of well recorded break-beats and ooodles of charm. One somehow feels sorry for them as victims of the distorted intellectual bollocks of Soviet Communism. Without some bespectacled political theorist reading Karl Marx's Das Kapital as reflected by a distorted funhouse mirror,This fucked up Funk would have never existed outside of the Eurovision song contest in the 1970's. 

The funniest part of all this is that the poor sod's left behind in mother Russia are gonna have to go through all this shit again thanks to the whims and insecurities of a Phil Collins lookalike with a marsh-mellow like complexion akin to the Pilsbury Dough Boy.The silly fuckers are gonna have to listen to Russian music again, and spend 50% of their state approved wages on a burger from "Tasty and that's IT!",the new national Burger joint.....sadly they've yet to come up with a Russified version of a McFlurry as of yet.

A sadly contemporary example of that silly Soviet trait of making dangerous and downright bad forgeries of western products,and then boasting that "we have Burgers too american pigdogs", just as they used to think that they had Funkier Music......even in Moldova?!

Tracklist:

1.Гайдуцкая Баллада6:46

2.Монолог3:44

3.У Мельницы3:22

4.Край Мой2:55

5.Калина3:01Ничего Не Оспорю4:44

6.Первое Танго2:48

7.Апрель3:37

8.Оризонт3:19

DOWNLOAD enjoy yourself and you will dance,or be shot HERE!

Gaya – "Azerbaijan Vocal And Instrumental Ensemble" (Меlodia – 33 С60-06819-20)1976

Ukrainians, bless 'em, as much as they tried, did not have, what is commonly known as, 'The Funk', After witnessing centuries of, either,being targeted, witnessing,or gleefully taking part in, brutal atrocities on the Eurasian plate,their DNA is far too abstract and fucked up to embrace the joys of  dancing (unless its some lumpen folk dance). This explains why they and their Slavic cousins seem to have an overriding darkness as part of their shadowy aura's. 

I was once offered the chance to have my Aura painted by some new-age lady of questionable talents,but she gave up as i was, quote, 'Too Sceptical'.....er...yes?

These silly drawings normally comprise of splashes of abundantly happy colours,and basically everything's gonna be great. I imagine if she drew the aura of a Ukrainian,or a Russian, or anything serbo-croat for that matter,it would display a preponderance of monochrome drawn from the greyscale rainbow .

Now Azerbaijan doesn't have this genepool problem as, tectonically, it straddles the Asian and Eurasian plates. Although,they are mostly Turkish in origin,and therefore responsible for some very dodgy Genocides themselves,Armenians mainly...but at least they could dance eh?.

Yes they really are called Gaya!....a group name that could get you into serious trouble in modern Russia.

Any citizen found indulging in the undoubted delights of brown love,or doing carpet, would quickly be rewarded with one free flying lesson, without a plane, off the nearest tall building.

Gaya certainly had 'The Funk' ,but sprinkled with liberal quantities of grated cheese.....as the blatant lie "I'm Happy" seems to testify to,both in reality denial and funky naffness.

Another fun(?) song title for me is track 10,"I'll Find You",which is the catchphrase of the idiotic (David Ames) who wants to kill me for copyright infringements(?) on my copious Jandek posts in his self-appointed authority as The Corwood Rep's de facto minder.

FYI...i don't break copyright laws,all i do provide a link to the storage provider,(the massive Google)who is in fact the potentially culpable party,this has in fact been long established,and test cased during the Megaupload appeal.

However,copyright was not something that troubled any artist from the former USSR days,as they never got paid anyway,any profits were donated to the state,via the back pockets of of the local commissariat .But,alas,Yet another good source of breaks for your drum'n'bass project that no-one wants to hear. A crime that I have been responsible for in the not too distant past.

All we need now is a Moldavian Funk ensemble to add a cherry to a very unlikely cake.......you guessed it...it's up next!? 

Tracklist:

1 Doesn't It Seem To You...
2 There's No Prettier Blossom
3 I'm Happy
4 Charming Girl
5 Aman Yar
6 Spring Song
7 Always With Me
8 Thrushes
9 Quickly, Quickly
10 I'll Find You
11 Mexico

DOWNLOAD in as gaya way as possible HERE!

Vodograi - "Водограй" (Мелодия – 33 С60-09399-400) 1978

Its a shame that we are going to be deprived of the Russian entry in the next Eurovision Song Contest. Held in the lively Ukrainian town of...Liverpool(?) substituting Kiev, for obvious reasons? However we will have another fine Ukrainian entry to make us all wonder if we're on the wrong side in this increasingly pointless war....er...i mean, Special Military Operation. The horrible winning entry earlier this year, was from.....you guessed it....Ukraine! An awful amalgam of Eastern European sub-hip hop with clothes resembling a car crash between The Black Eyed Peas and Teletubbies' Fuzzy Felt chic...with added Rapping...or raping if you're a Russian 'soldier'.

It got the sympathy vote of course, and cost the UK their first Euro-win since all the former Soviet republics were admitted in 1991.

So to compensate here's another Soviet Ukrainian attempt at cold war entertainment from groovy commie combo ,Vodograi.

This type of break-beat laden cheesy listening got me through the nineties (hard times musically),allowing a humanitarian corridor through all that 'orrible house crap leading to many a chill-out oasis in the depressing clubs and repurposed discotheques of local clubland.

The singing may empty an already empty room of all it's sub-atomic particles, but these cheesy grooves could even get a legless Russian Special Military Operation veteran dancing till his stumps bleed. Spelling out "Thanks Mr Putin" in his blood while swaying Ironically to the heartfelt and jawdroppingly unironic ballad called "For The Motherland".Ahh, the unbridled joys of Nationalism.

Tracklist:

1 Запроси До Танцю = Invite Me To Dance
2 Незване Моє Кохання = My Unexpected Beloved
3 Дiвчина Мила = Darling Girl
4 Путешествие = Journey
5 Несла Дiвчина Воду = Once A Girl Was Carrying Water
6 Тебе Назло = Just To Spite You
8 Вишневый Рассвет = Cherry-red Daw
9 Воспоминание = Memory
10 Родине = For Motherland
11 Голубой Вагон (Музыкальная Шутка) = Blue Car (Musical Joke)

DOWNLOAD from a motherless motherland HERE!

Vizerunki Shlyakhiv - "Візерунки Шляхів" (Меlodia – С60-06699-700) 1976

Funky Vizerunki Shlyakhiv was a folky,funky,but very latin sounding, 'Ukrainian vocal-instrumental ensemble',as described in Soviet newspeak, from the lovely city of Kyiv,.....yeah that place we now know is pronounced 'Keev' rather than 'Key-Ev', since they kicked the butt of the Russian invading force/farce earlier this year.
Dunno if any of Vizerunki Shlyakhiv took out any tanks,but they seem to resemble a bunch of handy chaps with State approved Flares to match.I have no doubt that these swarthy Slavs know the right end of a Panzerfaust 3 and how to use it.

There's a Ukrainian Folk tilt given to some of these smoking workouts that would please the local communist commissar bastard,backed up with a song about local commie hero Shcors to ensure no-one got sent for re-education in a Siberian gulag anytime soon.

State Label Melodia has rarely been cooler....which isn't saying much.Unless its referring to temperature of course.

Tracklist:

1. Пісня Про Щорса / Song About Shchors
2. Камінь Сонця / The Sunny Stone
3. Я Люблю Твої Тихі Затоки / I Love Your Backwaters
4. Гуахіра / Guahira
5. Коло Млина Калина / A Guelder Rose Grows By The Mill
6. Марійка / Mariyka
7. Весна I Ти / You And Spring
8. Била Мене Мати / My Mother Beat Me

DOWNLOAD swarthy men in flares HERE!