Various Artists – "Ideal Guest House" (Shelter) 1986 & "The First After Epiphany" (Ron Johnson Records – ZRON 21) 1987

As I received a request for a Ron Johnson compilation,it reminded me of the official comedian attached to this shambling Ron Johnson style stuff, Ted "I was Walking Down the Road" Chippington. I'm not sure if he was into this kind of popular music,but he was enlisted to be the compare of this trendy compilation cassette to support homeless charity "Shelter"; which is rather apt as we are facing the largest homeless crisis in Europe since world war too. Its time to start world war Free (dom) innit? I am of course referring to the current Invasion of Ukraine by that nice Mr Putin man....just in case you are part of the uninformed majority,or living in Russia....in which case i have to inform you that your army has been committing War crimes against your Slavic brothers in the west.....basically you're fucked.

The drole monotone self-elected worst comedian in the world ever Ted,links together a bunch of shambling C86-era,Johnson related groups in his characteristic stoic manner...at times he's even funny!?

Its got Bog-Shed and bIG fLAME on it, what more could you want or need?......just ignore the Chumbawamba track,...oooooh, they didn't like Neil Kinnock.....edgy stuff not, nuff said.

Tracklist:

A1 Big Flame– Man Of Few Syllables
A2 The Wedding Present– You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends (alt Version)
A3 The Soup Dragons– Fair's Fair
A4 The Creepers– Sharper And Wider
A5 The Shop Assistants – Home Again (Live)
A6 The June Brides– This Town (Accoustic)
A7 Rob Grant with Yeah Yeah Noh– Mr. Hammond Has Breakfast In Bed
B1 Stump– Kitchen Table
B2 The Legend!– Everythings Coming Up Roses
B3 Pigbros– Barren Land
B4 Stitched Back Foot Airman– The Deadly Spore
B5 BMX Bandits– Sad?
B6 Bog-shed – Jobless Youngsters
B7 Chumbawamba– Kinnochio

DOWNLOAD and give these tracks a home HERE!

Oh Yeah!...here's that Ron Johnson sampler LP "The First After Epiphany" that i mistakenly thought had no exclusive tracks on it, and you could get them from the other official releases on the blog if you search for Ron Johnson Records. I was wrong, There's at least a Twang! track that one can't get elsewhere,and maybe an errant Splat! number,or anything else with an exclamation mark in it's name:

"The First After Epiphany"
Ron Johnson Records – ZRON 21 (1987)

Tracklist:

A1 Splat!– Mistook
A2 Big Flame– XPQWRTZ
A3 A Witness– Dipping Bird
A4 Stump– Big End
A5 MacKenzies– Man With No Reason
B1 The Shrubs– Blackmailer
B2 The Ex– Knock
B3 Twang – Here's Lukewarm
B4 The Nose Flutes– Bodyhair Up In The Air
B5 The Great Leap Forward– Drowning Speechless
B6 Jackdaw With Crowbar– Crow

DOWNLOAD this epiphanal moment HERE!

Various Artists ‎– "C-86" (New Musical Express ‎– NME 022) 1986

Amazingly,five of the Ron Johnson stable appeared on the Iconic 'Indie' compilation "C-86", as released/compiled by the NME.

Indeed we also find Bogshed nestled in amongst such pale floppy fringe wearers as The Wolfhounds, the Bodines and other jangly foppish nonsense.

I'm surprised to discover that the tape that defined an Indie Era of jingly jangly tweedom, did in fact have some very non-jangly groups included.

Primal Scream open up the proceedings sounding, for all the world exactly like the very shit Stone Roses, three years in advance of all that 'Madchester' crap.

Of course Primal Scream would become one of those very same ,terrible bandwagon jumping combo's of 1989. Of the rest only The Soup Dragons would join them in making dance/indie crossover awfulness; which is a shame because I quite liked early Soup Dragons......I'll admit......in fact i quite enjoyed a lot of this tape!?....which is strange, as I regarded this stuff (Ron Johnson acts excepted), as the enemy,rather than the NME.

30 years removed,one now finds this jangly indie pop refreshing,and charmingly youthful.Unlike me.

Tracklist:

1–Primal Scream Velocity Girl 1:22
2–The Mighty Lemon Drops Happy Head 2:42
3–The Soup Dragons Pleasantly Surprised 2:05
4–The Wolfhounds-Feeling So Strange Again 1:41
5–The Bodines-Therese 3:09
6–Mighty Mighty-Law 3:40
7–Stump-Buffalo 4:30
8–Bogshed-Run To The Temple 3:28
9–A Witness-Sharpened Sticks 2:30
10–The Pastels-Breaking Lines 2:59
11–The Age Of Chance-From Now On,This Will Be Your God 3:12
12–Shop Assistants-It's Up To You 2:38
13–The Close Lobsters - Firestation Towers 1:48
14–Miaow-Sport Most Royal 2:54
15–Half Man Half Biscuit-I Hate Nerys Hughes (From The Heart) 3:46
16–The Servants-Transparent 2:36
17–MacKenzies-Big Jim (There's No Pubs In Heaven) 2:34
18–Big Flame-New Way(Quick Wash & Brush Up With Liberation Theology)1:37
19–We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It-Console Me 1:24
20–McCarthy-Celestial City 2:59
21–The Shrubs-Bullfighter's Bones 3:48
22–The Wedding Present-This Boy Can Wait 4:00

DOWNLOAD to see and hear 1986 HERE!

A Witness ‎– "I Love You, Mr Disposable Razors" (Vinyl Drip International ‎– SUK 10) 1989

For the completists out there,here's the contrived farewell single from A Witness, with a prime example of what crud was happening in music around the dark days of 'Madchester' stuck on the b-side. The 'art' of the remix had started,and they were nearly ALL shit, and a total rip off and/or cop out. I quite liked Vince Clarkes remix of  "Wrote For Luck" by the sub-moronic Crappy Mondays, but apart from that....shit.

On BBC 4 last night, i was gobsmacked to see listed an hour long documentary on ,so-called, 'Classic Albums', and couldn't believe it when the album in question, was the worst album of all time, "Screamadelica". Seeing the persons responsible for this crime against culture, talking deadly serious and pretentious nonsense about this terrible affront to civilization , as if it was up there with Beethoven's Ninth, or Michaelangelo's Sistene Chapel frescoes (before renovation);left me open mouthed in astonishment.... Fuck Me! Gillespie probably thinks he is Beethoven and Michaelangelo reincarnated.Come back in the form of the lank haired scottish poseur genius himself to punish us.

How they droned on about that fucking terrible "Loaded" Andy Wetherall remix, as if it was some kind of genius, was nothing short of sickening.I had to stop this self-torture and go and do something more intellectually stimulating, like have a shit!

Indeed, A Witness did one of these things on track three, that makes "Loaded" look like the act of genius Bobby Gillespie thinks it is, and the genius that he thinks he is.

Despite the contrived surrealism of the title track, and the dumb crapness of the remix; the version of the song that began modern pop music, "Tomorrow Never Knows", is a pretty decent attempt at a genuine classic, so 3/10 isn't too bad after all,or, after Weatherall.

A Witness fell off a cliff after this,as their guitarist and band leader Rick Aitkin literally did the same and died!

Tracklist:
A1 I Love You, Mr Disposable Razors
B1 Tomorrow Never Knows
B2 Razors Lifestyle Mix

DOWNLOAD mr disposable single HERE!

A Witness ‎– "I Am John's Pancreas" (Ron Johnson Records ‎– ZRON 12) 1986

Atonal, Angular, Discordant, drum machine driven pop from Stockports finest alternative music combo........its a classic.....can't be arsed to write ought else.

Tracklist:

A1 Smelt Like A Pedestrian
A2 O'Grady's Dream
A3 Car Skidding
A4 Red Snake
A5 Dipping Bird
B1 Sharpened Sticks
B2 The Loudhailer Song
B3 Legs Be Sturdy
B4 4.49 Stool
B5 Hard Days Love

Bonus Track

Red Snake 12" version

DOWNLOAD to regulate john's blood sugar levels HERE!

A Witness ‎– "One Foot In The Groove EP" (Ron Johnson Records ‎– ZRON30) 1988

A very listenable EP from the later incarnation of 'A Witness' with a human drummer. It has a couple of tracks that have that 'I'm sure I've heard this before' quality about them,like Macca felt when he wrote 'Yesterday'. The Riff to 'Raw Patch' had to have been written before surely..... but it hasn't. It has that classic simplicity like an Indie 'Smoke On The Water'.
"Zip Up" would also have been an indie classic if it had come out a year earlier, but unfortunately this record along with every good group in 1988 got swamped by the drugged up dancing hordes of the Magic Roundabout,or whatever those blissed out Chav's and 'luvved up' former football hooligans called the M25 London orbital motorway? 
I can confirm that A Witness never resorted to shaking a tambourine,dusting off the Wah-Wah and getting 'Funky'.They just split up and left all that nonsense to fellow c-86 band Primal fucking Scream.

Tracklist:

A1 Raw Patch
A2 Faglane Morris Wind
B1 Zip Up
B2 Nodding Dog Moustache

DOWNLOAD from beyond the groove HERE!

A Witness ‎– "Loudhailer Songs" (Ron Johnson Records ‎– ZRON 5) 1985

A Quintessential Ron Johnson group was A Witness, and this is an early release for both of these entities.
Looking at the front cover and you'd expect some Industrial group like Einsturzende Neubauten to occupy the grooves within, but no!..... yet another unique take on the classic Guitar Bass Voice and Drums format.....in this case Drum Machine.
Gravelly Bass, Atonal Guitar, and a nasally vocalist singing surreal lyrics over some uncomfortably grating,angular,tunes......this is possibly their best record?  

DOWNLOAD and hail louder songs HERE!

A Witness - "Peel Sessions 1985-88" (a Die or DIY? Compilation)

'A Witness' was another of that batch of unclassifiable mid-eighties bands from the north of England that fitted very comfortably on Ron Johnson Records. Again we have a vague Captain Beefheart influence filtered through the very unique landscape of post-punk northern Britain.
The necessitated use of a drum machine ,after the original drummer left, ironed out a lot of the wavering time signatures, but later in their career they managed to secure the services of one Alan Brown from excellent bIG fLAME to fill in on drums. This was an undoubted improvement.
They managed four Peel sessions before the untimely death of atonal guitarist Rick Aitkin via, among all things that cause death in the annals of Rock'n'Roll, a mountaineering accident!? Not something you'd find Keith Moon or Jimi Hendrix doing, too dangerous.Father Yod of Ya-Ho-Wha 13 managed to die in a bizarre hang-gliding accident, thats about as close as we can get to mountaineering in Rock, or on Rock, or in this case Off Rock,as in 'Falling Off'.

Track Listing:

01 The Loudhailer Song [15-12-1985]
02 Smelt Like a Pedestrian [15-12-1985]
03 O'Grady's Dream [15-12-1985]
04 Sharpened Sticks [15-12-1985]
05 Faglane Morris Wind [16-11-1986]
06 Nodding Dog Moustache [16-11-1986]
07 Raw Patch [16-11-1986]
08 Hard Day's Love [16-11-1986]
09 Take me to the earth [10-01-1988]
10 McManus Octaphone [10-01-1988]
11 Sunbed Sentimental [10-01-1988]
12 Zip up [10-01-1988]
13 I love you mr disposable razors [20-11-1988]
14 Life - the final frontier [20-11-1988]
15 Helicopter tealeaf [20-11-1988]
16 Prince microwave bollard [20-11-1988]

DOWNLOAD without witnesses HERE!