Thursday 9 February 2023

The Deep Freeze Mice – "The Tender Yellow Ponies Of Insomnia" (Cordelia Records – ERICAT 027) 1989


I wrote this unintelligible blurb whilst unintentionally listening to
The Chrysanthemums' – "Is That A Fish On Your Shoulder Or Are You Just Pleased To See Me?" LP from 1987;which i had earmarked for this slot,and confusing myself somewhat in the process that I was listening to a Deep Freeze Mice album, namely the one entitled above.
An easy mistake to make,as both bands shared certain members.
So,as I can't be fucking bothered to write it again, I will review The Chrysanthemums as I listen to "The Tender Yellow Ponies Of Insomnia",following this utter bollox-up!
So keeping faith with the Bryon Gysin cut-up technique, and in the grand traditions of experimental literature,It remains as so,which keeps in fitting with the surrealism of yer average Deep Freeze Mice tchoon? Yes?
I know this maybe an insult, but there are times when The Deep Freeze Mice (The Chrysanthemums in fact!?) sound like The Soft Boys?
Apart from The Soft Boys being a better band name,of course  this is generally piffle Sidney ...oh no,they've got me at it now, all this surreal random sentence construction; for the sake of this blog...I like to think of it as YoOuR Blog, or in this epoch of gender re-assignment and pro nouns, maybe even Their blog?
I dunno how we got to posting more gentle mad-cap DFM madness,I was trying to indulge y'all in my new fascination with shoe gazing Twee-Pop,and its dreamy derivatives.
Well a couple of DFM members were in Ruth's Refrigerator,not literally IN her fridge,the band; which was quite Twee in places,but they're a Leicester band,and i don't need any excuses for a shaht aht for the old home town. I once wanted my mortal remains scattered onto the playing surface at Filbert street, but, like a lot of other iconic buildings ,pubs and places, It ain't there no more!!!The King Power ain't the same.....for a start its exactly the same design,\and just as soulless, as Southampton's St Mary's stadium, that replaced the very much missed,but eccentric 'Dell'.Bizarrely, that was my last match at Filbo (Filbert Street),at home to going places Southampton.....we lost 4-0,and i left early to a chorus of abuse from the home section expectorated in my general direction,when one irate young man shouted "Fuck Off Then, see you again when we're top of the fucking league.....Cunt!"
I was used to this kind of targeted heckling ,when i had the misfortune,or fortune, to pass my exam and get allocated a place in a Grammar school in those good old days of streaming and shameless elitism.Me being resident in the circle of scum that invariably forms around most cities,the ones left behind didn't take kindly to being labelled 2nd class,but didn't want anyone to leave ,or have any chance to"better themselves"...so i was frequently threatened with violence,and sometimes they even delivered on the threats, and referred to 'moi'as "That Fucking Posh Cunt"......to use a comedy catchphrase from the cult "Friday Night Dinner" comedy series..."SHIT ON IT". Hence the bitter prick I am today.
But....the Deep Freeze Mice is definitely the collective work of several persons who obviously passed their 11+ exams,and maybe a couple who didn't need to (Thinly veiled Trustafarian reference there), and boy do they want us to know it?
Yeah that singer does sound like Robyn Hitchcock don't he?...Only better,with better lyrics,better song titles and no future Eurovision song contest winners in their ranks.

Tracklist:

1 A (Dog Found A Stick In A Park With Such Magical Powers That A Bark Caused A Marvelous Pie To Drop Out Of The Sky And The Doggy Would Grin Like A Shark) 3:25
2 Ariadne Metal Cream Pie 3:43
3 The Postman's Dry 2:09
4 The Cake Of Conversation 3:26
5 Programme Controller Flowers 1:52
6 I Don't Have A Horse 2:53
7 Poodle Haddock: Part One 0:31
8 Poodle Haddock: Part Two 1:59
9 Conversation Gap Panic 2:32
10 Buzzing Unobtrusively 2:12
11 The Amphibious Nun 0:51
12 Love You More 1:54
13 Janis 3:10
14 Into The Valley Of Death Rode The Six Hundred Shouting "Dig It" 1:12
15 Don't Eat Aluminium 7:14
16 To Hell With It, Let Her Keep The Chicken (The Postman's Dryer) 2:09

Extra Tracks:

17 The Delicious Little Green Roosters Of Insomnia 29:00
18 Into The Valley Of Death (Demo Version) 1:09
19 The Grindy Track 6:30

DOWNLOAD mice and Chrysanthemums from the deep freeze HERE!

17 comments:

dreams-dxt said...

I once decided to leave Greece and go to Leicester only for the Deep Freeze Mice... I returned really soon.

Richie Muster said...

The song titles alone win me over. I'm looking forward to this one. Ta!

Jonny Zchivago said...

@ dreams-dxt....wot?....you went to Leicester,saw Deep Freeze Mice, then went back home then returned really soon to Leicester...or...couldn't wait to escape the grey monoliths of the jewel of the East Midlands to return to the azure blue skys of Greece...never been there personally,probably never;but
Why anyone would want to visit Leicester I'd never guess,unless you were born there,A football fan, or to check out The Deep Freeze Mice family.

dreams-dxt said...

@Johnny... exactly that... wanted to visit Leicester only for the Deep Freeze Mice... found nothing special apart from some squirrels running around the park and then returned to my shitty town in Greece... with the blue sky, the sun and the sea (somewhere further)

Jonny Zchivago said...

@dreams-dxt...those squirrels are extinct now, replaced by Students.All my fav pubs are now tower blocks of Student accommodation, The old football stadium..."Filbert Street" is now..erm high rise student accommodation!
The old music venues are now.....you guessed it....Student accommodation.
MY old school, is now part of the University.All the cool parts have been gentrified,so basically there's nowhere to live.
Lots of Greek students paying huge fees to live and learn in Leicester under the slate grey skies and monolithic student apartments.
Your shitty town sounds like paradise in comparison.
Alan Jenkins still lives there though,and most of his collaborators too. It has its own obscure magic I suppose....I still love it,but now live under blues skies in southern France.....Musics shit here though.

dreams-dxt said...

@Jonny ... funny thing to mention, I was searching for a place to live for over a week, impossibly to find back then (1999)... now everything is made for the students and their belovingly money... not only Greek students are coming to Leicester to 'study' but there was also a Greek football player in the local team back in the '90s! I hope Alan will stay active and continue to spread his obscure Jandekish magic... and about the 'shitty town' of mine... no it wasn't better than Leicester, although now I am situated in Thessaloniki that is far better than the other, although music is the same as in Southern France... long live the mice... (another boring info... you know that in the early 90s a Greek Record Label from Thessaloniki reissued an album of them... - the label was called Lazy Dog and the owner Babis passed away last January)...

Jonny Zchivago said...

@dreams-dxt....i remember the player...excuse my spelling but i think it was Theo Zagorakis.Scored a couple of important goals.
I was still living in Leicester in 1999......in the suburbs,but still my local pub got 'developed'..into a drive through KFC!?

dreams-dxt said...

@Jonny ... Yep! that was him, Θοδωρής Ζαγοράκης, he was the captain of Greece that won UEFA Euro 2004, and then also president of PAOK (Thessaloniki's 'best' team), and then... he became a politician (on the right wing of European Parliament)... let's forget him and cross our fingers for a new Alan Jenkins one soon :-) maybe a Kettering Vampires one?

Vaykorus said...

THANKS!!

Alan Jenkins said...

Hello. I actually live in Suffolk now. It was only the squirrels keeping me in Leicester.

Perhaps I could interest your readers in my latest album: https://alanjenkins.bandcamp.com/album/minds-as-different-from-those-of-humans-as-human-minds-are-from-those-of-spiders

Alan Jenkins,
guitarist

Jonny Zchivago said...

Hello Alan Jenkins.....guitarist. I've toyed with the idea of refering to myself as Jonny Zchivago....Influencer;or better still, 'The Influencer' but i think it sounds too Proggy. Blogger seem popular on BBC Breakfast..there's always some saddo who describes themselves as Journalist and Blogger being interviewed about something made up.
I'm sure The readers would probably be suitably excited to check out the new LP. I've enjoyed re-acquainting myself with your vast back catalogue. I wasn't too keen back in the day,but now i'm an old fucker I find it all rather amusing....what's happened to me?
My sister lives in Suffolk,on one of those trailer parks,maybe next door to you?

PS when is the new Kettering Vampires album coming out?

Alan Jenkins said...

That album is with The Kettering Vampires. I enjoyed your write up above, by the way. I would just take issue with the "Trustafarian" comment - The Mice could barely afford to eat in those days. I'll say hello to your sister if I see her.

Jonny Zchivago said...

Lol....the very essence of a Trustafarianism is extoling the virtues of starvation due to lack of cash, while they wait for their trustfunds to mature.
Not that i'm accusing you specifically.Its just that there's always one,and are never easy to spot,beyond being well spoken.
This annoyed one of Swell Maps, when i suggested the same...he came back with how hard they had to work to buy their equipment....in Leamington Spa!?... I rest my case.
The Slits, However, never said anything like this,as it was patently obvious they were poor little rich girls gone punk.
I'll tell my sister to look out for you.....I warn you, she's rather right wing,like everyone in Suffolk.....except you?

Alan Jenkins said...

We may have passed the eleven plus but none of us ever had a trust fund. Personally I have been skirting the event horizon of financial black hole for decades.

I am certainly not right wing. Whenever I run into your sister we try to avoid talking about politics.

Are you also a musician Jonny?

Jonny Zchivago said...

Indeed i too have skirted certain event horizons,but now i'm thoroughly Bourgeois,debt free and solvent.
Yes, i am what some would call a musician.Don't really write melodic songs as such, although i did when i joined a French Metal Band for a laugh,as singer and lead guitarist...such fun...doing somethingthat isn't exactly your bag innit?
In various projects, Zog (Improv),Scouts Of Uzbekistan (avant Rock), Thee Mark Chapman Experience (Noise), Meat Kiosk (Drone)
Its all on YouTube in various forms....haven't got round to the Bandcamp ghetto as yet....there's a new Scouts LP so maybe start there?
Zog was gonna have a vinyl release on Siltbreeze,but the pandemic finished that one....also the drummer had an unfortunate accident with a stone cutter that put him out of action for the last few years!
There were others...that stretch back to school days.

a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOlQuUJcAMo


Alan Jenkins said...

I've been listening to Fun Lovin' Muslims - I could hear the This Heat influence. And also the Son of Zog you linked to.

I quite like it. I might stick it on again.

Jonny Zchivago said...

Hands up for This Heat,although most people say Can....which figures as they're famous and This Heat aren't.The sax player is my brother (Phil Allison...why he changed his name to that from Zchivago I'll never know...could ask i suppose?), who was in plain awful leicester band Rocking Bastards
I thought i sent a link to Meat Kiosk,which has my fav vids,...but obviously i didn't.
A second play is always the tester as it its quality or lack of therein.
I drove to the supermarket this afternoon, and what was on the car stereo?... The Chrysanthemums, fish on your shoulder etc.

a very silly video: https://youtu.be/dKxF4OIGkqc