Various Artists ‎– "An Hour Of Color Vol. 3" (Color Disc ‎– Color 13) 1986

The incredibly high standard of stuff from Color Tapes continues with volume 3 of the 'An Hour Of Color' series of compilations.I've said it all before, you know what you're gonna get, so get on with it.....its good.

Tracklisting:

A1 –Space Brothers - Lost Civilisation
A2 –Modern Art - Monument Of Heaven
A3 –Lives Of Angels - Lives Of Angels
A4 –WeR7 - The Hearts Outstanding
A5 –Kata Kolbert - Poor Poor Thing
A6 –Cleaners From Venus - Ilya Kuryakin Looked At Me
A7 –Moisten Before Use - Where To Now
A8 –Bill Pritchard - Fact Or Fiction
B1 –Space Brothers - Purple Twilight
B2 –Modern Art - She Cannot Yet Be Seen
B3 –Lives Of Angels - Green On Black
B4 –Kata Kolbert - Marriage Of Inconvenience
B5 –Shadow Of Light - Play Your Joker
B6 –Cleaners From Venus - Follow The Plough
B7 –3D5 - Special Fx
B8 –Face In The Crowd - Somewhere, Sometimes
B9 –Mystery Plane - Madame Sin

DOWNLOAD the color from c86 HERE!

Various ‎Artists – "An Hour Of Color Vol. 2" (Color Disc ‎– Color 10) 1985

Another one of the many compilations released on cassette by Color Tapes in the eighties, this one is from 1985....not a vintage year elsewhere, but on the Color label, it was as if the 'New Romantics' had never happened.
We are treated to two melodic classix from the cruelly ignored 'Cleaners From Venus', worth the admission money all by themselves.This is countered by the truly awful 'That It', with some over-clever lounge jazz for the discerning pseudo intellectual.
The rest is populated by the usual Color crew, normally involving Gary Ramon somewhere in the mix of Minimal Synth, Cold Wave, and Proto-Indie ditties...really rather marvellous.

Tracklisting:

A1 –Cleaners From Venus - Soul Monday
A2 –Lives Of Angels - Red Suit
A3 –Take-It - Fallen Out
A4 –Modern Art - Confrontation
A5 –Berserk In A Hayfield - Pulse
A6 –WeR7 - I Was Not A Jew
A7 –Space Brothers - Lodore
B1 –Cleaners From Venus - Julie Profumo
B2 –Take-It - I'd Like To Talk To You
B3 –Berserk In A Hayfield - Fear
B4 –Mystery Plane - Dungeon Blues
B5 –Timothy London - Mission Impossible
B6 –The Teamtones - She Says No
B7 –Lives Of Angels - Threatened
B8 –Andy Boot Quartet - Perfectly Perfunctory
B9 –WeR7 - I Pray To A Moving God

DOWNLOAD a full 52 minutes of color HERE!

Stray Trolleys ‎– "Secret Dreams Of A Kitchen Porter" (Man At The Off Licence ‎– NOW 004) 1979

The Stray Trolleys don't half sound like The Cleaners from Venus don't they?That's because they are/were The Cleaners from Venus,but this time in a 1979 vintage.When everyone else was listening to the deconstructed rock/pop song, like Wire and the Gang of Four, Martin Newell and chums were busy RE-constructing the pop song.All the Cleaners main attributes are here in fuzzy lo-fi,like jangly melodies,social relevance, and psych-stalgia; all under the umbrella of the noble slogan,"Bankrupt the Biz - Buy DIY". An ominous prediction of what we are doing now in the bloggersphere.Apparently these were "demo's",if they exist in the DIY world at all? And weren't released until 1982;including a daringly straight tribute to those DIY legends, otherwise known affectionately as The Fab Four. 

Tracklist:   

Topside 

A1 Secret Dreams Of A Kitchen Porter 
A2 Russian Picture 
A3 Bontemps Roulez 
A4 Mrs. Diller 
A5 Teenage Gunmen   

Silver Side 

B1 Five Pieces Written For An Autumn Art Exhibition The Theme Of Which Was "The Small Hours" 
B2* She Luv's U - A Tribute To The Fab Four By The Cleaners From Venus
*(had to misspell the title of B2 to avoid the Apple Mafia who got me banned the last time i posted this tape!?)


DOWNLOAD the kitchen porters dreams HERE! 
or
DOWNLOAD the kitchen on mediafire HERE!

Stray Trolleys ‎– "Barricades And Angels" ( Man At The Off Licence ‎– POW 003) 1980

This is hi-fi!?One of the few bands on this site that actually managed to get worse sound quality as they evolved,devolved,then evolved again.For those of you who don't know already, The Stray Trolleys were The Cleaners From Venus before they were The Cleaners from Venus.The fact that this was recorded in a long defunct professional (Octopus)studio, between 79-80, explains the good recording quality; but it only focuses on the quality songcraft even more.Lo-fi recordings can mask such deficiencies as musical talent and lack of material very well.One can only applaud this fine group for their right angular approach to underground music,turning at 270°to 300° rather than 90° like This Heat etc,and embracing the good bits of Pop's past, all with the fine attribute of a total lack of commercial ambition.

DOWNLOAD the barricades HERE! 
or
DOWNLOAD the barricades on mediafire HERE!

Martin Newell ‎– "Two For The Winter" (Man At The Off Licence ‎– 007) 1983

No this isn't a lost Syd Barrett cassette! This is a "cassingle" from mr Cleaner From Venus, Martin Newell,aptly entitled, "Two for the Winter".This ain’t yer jangly melodic post punk psych,but more akin with the sonic playground of 'normal' UK DIY.Here, Mr Newell gets experimental; not much melody on show here, but two interesting duels between drum box and tandy effects units. There is rather too much annoyingly unamusing Pythonesque jiggery pokery going on in "When Fire Burns Dreams" for me, and much prefer the other track,which has more of a song basis,and no hippie capers ruining it.Obviously, from the pictures on the cover, Mr Newell quite fancies himself as a bit of a Syd Barret clone......and why not? Wear your influences on yer sleeve, why don't you? 

Tracklist 

A When Fire Burns Dreams 
B Amateur Paranoiac 

DOWNLOAD two for the winter HERE!

Martin Newell ‎– "Songs For A Fallow Land" (Man At The Off Licence ‎– (0)(0)(9) 1985

I've always been a big fan of 'Poverty'.Not the 'Poverty' that the big secret Boss man uses to control and suppress us of the underclass, Africans, and other lower social stratum.But, 'Poverty' as a kind of creative hunger, as motivation to create something 'rich' for yourself,and ultimately, others.If you can do this and resist the juicy carrots that the 'Boss Man' will dangle in an attempt to steal your creativity, then you will not become crap and a sell-out twat.This has been the route to greatness ever since original Hippie, Jesus H. Christ,threw his toys out of the pram on the steps of the Temple in Jerusalem.Martin Newell continued on this righteous path with this Solo cassette album from 1985; one of the very worst years in music ever!Martin alone in his bedroom,with drum machine and four track,churns out more unashamedly catchy melodies; but,i'm afraid, not as catchy as the tapes he made with other bandmates.This is the problem with interacting with a drum box rather than fallible human beings; it's lost that swing,that essential looseness.But still fucking good,and better than nearly all the pop of 1985.Syd Barrett makes another appearance,this time as a version of his Madcap classic "Late Night"; which in the hands of Newell reveals the pop potential of Syd's unique songwriting.What a great tune.If this fellow sold out in 1985 he could have been up there with The Smiths on Top of the Pops, and maybe even grassed up Saville for the world; but surely he would have fell foul of the Illuminati peado ring black mail squad,as many others,like those BBC liars, have.Alas, Mr Newell still scores 10 out of 10 for ideology and keeping it real:"It can be done.Now do it yourselves.What if they started a record company and nobody signed? Ha! Ha! Ha!" 

Tracklist 

A1 Sun Comes To The Wood 
A2 Julie Profumo 
A3 Soul Monday 
A4 Gamma Ray Blue 
A5 Heroin Clones 

B1 Winter Palace 2 
B2 Golden Lane 
B3 Stars Are Cold 
B4 Late Night .
B5 Beyond...... 

DOWNLOAD from a fallow land HERE!

Cleaners From Venus – "13" (Man At The Off Licence ‎– 013) 1990

At last, we come to the last Cleaners from Venus 100% DIY release,the post-RCA debacle "13".Its more of the same from Martin Newell and crew, catchy melodious psychedelic pop,very strong lyrically and musically. In fact this is surprisingly excellent for 1990, as most groups had got 'luvved up' on E's; a subject nicely documented on track two on side one. A horrible time for pop music, where the white man was seen dancing like a bit-part extra in a zombie movie, and every drummer played the same ten second sample from a James Brown lp over,and over,and over again! Where even good groups like The Telescopes were turned on to tambourines and stripy tops.Fucking really crap stuff!Refreshingly, The Cleaners never were ones to follow trends,as with Punk,the same attitude was applied to Mad-fucking-chester and the Baggy Beat. They still churned out endless numbers of great tunes,like all the tracks on this swansong for the Man at the Off Licence cassette label.While I have been posting all this stuff by The Cleaners from Venus,Martin Newell etc; I have seen the number of hits on this blog plummet by at least 30%! It seems that this stuff ain't too popular with my regular audience, even though it is probably some of the most ideologically pure DIY stuff on this site.And they remained so long after the majority of UK DIYers had packed it in.So don't worry,I will be returning soon to the copious amount of Industrial cassettes that I have waiting in the wings.......even though they all sound exactly the same as each other. Its probably some of the least adventurous and formulaic musick ever made; but you kids love it.......and so do I really.But I do feel the need to slag it off for the same reasons I'd slag off boy band muzak. It follows a generic formula that ultimately suffocates it,and makes it sadly pointless; except that I'd rather eat Louis Walsh's shit than listen to the illuminati owned and inspired sexual propaganda of crap like The Wanted and One Direction.

 "No Record Companies Please!" 

Tracklist:
 
A1 The Jangling Man 
A2 No Go (For Louis Macneice) 
A3 Mariette 
A4 A Man For Our Time 
A5 Here She Crashes 

B1 A Street Called Prospect 
B2 Minesweeping Memory Lane 
B3 Germayne (Like A Cathedral) 
B4 Boy From The Home Counties 
B5 The Tear Collector 
B6 Christmas In Suburbia 

DOWNLOAD lucky 13 HERE!

Cleaners From Venus ‎– "Living With Victoria Grey" (Man At The Off Licence) 1986

Such Melodious joy!As if one was listening to one of those Bam Caruso records that were so popular in 1986. There are a fair few classic Psych tunes on this C40, sparkling with jangly splendour,as befits these 60's obsessives. I heard they got signed to RCA after this, the dirty sell outs. The only thing I don't like about this tape, is the authentically awful jokey bits; which you got on many an original Psych period LP. There's nothing worse than Psychedelic Humour; its like being held hostage in a sixth form common room with all the rich kids re-enacting the 'Parrot Sketch'.Please Kill Me Now! But, the songs are ALL great, especially the title track ,and "Follow The Plough ";although that track is spoiled by a thirty second intro of the dreaded jokey bits!You can easily edit it out if you can be arsed.I certainly can't be,but I quite enjoy being pissed off in a perverse kind of way.Its all part of life's bitter sweet pageant ain't it? 

Tracklist:

A1 Victoria Grey (1) 
A2 Ilya Kuryakin Looked At Me 
A3 Clara Bow 
A4 Follow The Plough 
A5 Stay On 

B1 What's Going On (In Your Heart?) 
B2 The Mercury Girl 
B3 Armistice Day 
B4 Pearl 
B5 Victoria Grey (2) 

DOWNLOAD a grey victorian HERE!

DOWNLOAD with victoria Grey in FLAC  HERE!

Cleaners From Venus ‎– "Midnight Cleaners" (Man At The Off Licence ‎– MAO 005) 1982

To quote the notes on the insert:"This is the cleaner's third tape. Anti-fashion but pro-pop." Couldn't sum this fantastic tape up better if I tried; but I will try. Firstly this contains my favourite Cleaners track, in a new improved version from the one on "Blow Away Your troubles"; "Wivenhoe Bells II". Which is a superb misty eyed reanimation of a lost England using a lost style of English pop; Whimsical Psychedelia. Secondly, this whole album is full of similarly post psychedelic/post punk classic pop song-writing.It is,simply, the best CFV album,in my opinion; and, not that you give a flying shit, I love it! Also ideologically sound, as betrayed on the insert: "No rights reserved. If you have money, buy it, if you don't copy it. If you do copy it write to us (S.A.E. please) for a cover." I approve! 

Tracklist:

Pop Side 

A1 This Rainy Decade 
A2 Time In Vain 
A3 Only A Shadow 
A4 Corridor Of Dreams 
A5 Wivenhoe Bells II 

Art Side 

B1 Midnight Cleaners 
B2 Factory Boy 
B3 A Wretched Street 
B4 Don't You Worry About The Ads 

DOWNLOAD a clean midnight for yourself,'cus you deserve it HERE!

Cleaners From Venus ‎– "Under Wartime Conditions (A Collection Of Pop Songs)" (Man At The Off Licence ‎– TAO/008) 1984

The covers are getting lazier, but the songs are getting better. "Under Wartime Conditions" pushes "Midnight Cleaners" as the Cleaners best tape. Side A starts off with the childhood nostalgia-fest of "Summer in a Small Town",and "Johnny the Moondog is Dead"; two absolute classic pop songs full of wistful melancholia. The rest of the tape doesn't reach these great heights, there ain't no fillers on here. This a great argument in favour of poverty as motivation for great art or craft;and Martin Newell and cohorts are definitely craftsmen from a dying breed of musician. "Song for Syd Barrett" betrays their roots as from that generation caught between the sixties and the new wave, too young for psychedelia,and too old for punk rock. Ironically, Punk Rock made it possible for "Piper" Pink Floyd to dump their "Dark Side of the Moon" records,and revisit the three minute experimental pop song. Even as J.Lydon wore his modified Pink Floyd T-Shirt down the Kings Road, Syd Barrett was always held in high regard by the more intelligent spikey tops. This lead to the inevitable underground revival of jangly psychedelic pop,of which The Cleaners from Venus were undoubtedly the first on the Trolley(note clever reference to the Cleaners first alter-ego, The Stray trolleys)borrowing  some much needed reality and social comment in the lyrics from their unkempt cousins in the bondage gear. The Wartime Conditions ,which the title refers to, is clearly a reference to life in recession hit Thatchers Britain; it weren't much fun being young outside of youth culture in 1984. A  bit like the modern era, with deliberately engineered economic collapse,creating debt and poverty to control the proletariat, and create potential vast profits for the elite when their stocks recover(after earlier selling them on the eve of the "Credit Crunch". These bastards should have their assets nationalised, without compensation; but that would need a free government to impose, rather than the puppet regime we have had for at least the last 200 years.......no Ed Miliband is not the answer,as Barack O'Bomber wasn't. Check out We Are Change.org and Occupy Wall street.org While you listen to this very human,non corporate,optimistic sounding cassette. Die or DIY? Freedom isn't FREE, but life is. 

Tracklist:

A1 Summer In A Small Town 
A2 Johnny The Moondog Is Dead 
A3 Hand Of Stone 
A4 Drowning Butterflies 
A5 Radio Seven 

B1 Fracas On West Street 
B2 Lukewarm Lovesong 
B3 A Blue Wave 
B4 A Song For Syd Barrett 
B5 The Winter Palace 

DOWNLOAD some wartime conditions HERE!

Cleaners From Venus ‎– "In The Golden Autumn" (Man At The Off Licence ‎– Frau 006) 1983

More psych tinged jangly pop genius from Wivenhoe's DIY legends, Cleaners from Venus. Doesn't reach the melodic highs of "Midnight Cleaners" or "On Any Normal Monday", but still a brave manifestation of 1967 vintage British pop for a 1983 audience. Politically astute 80's psychedelia that présaged the oncoming C86 garbage,with a total lack of feyness and/or fringes! All this produced with an apparent total lack of commercial ambition,an attitude that would save us all from oblivion,and starve the Illuminati of its power source. Don't pay your taxes,quit your job,picket your former place of slavery,close your bank account and share your stuff.The underlying philosophy behind DIY culture,as epitomised by Cleaners from Venus,is Individualism in a sustainable,non profit,non greed, environment.Mass Civil Disobedience is the true Democracy. The sound of freedom. 

Tracklist:

 Way Side:

A1 Renée (Who's Driving Your Car?) 

A2 A Holloway Person 

A3 Ghosts In Doorway 

A4 Don't Step On My Rainbow 

A5 Balloon Drop Shadow   

Sea Side:

B1 Krugerrand Gladiators 

B2 Golden Age Saturday 

B3 Marilyn On A Train 

B4 Sandstorm In Paradise 

B5 Victorian Society 

B6 A Fool Like You

DOWNLOAD this autumnal gold HERE!

DOWNLOAD this autumnal gold in FLAC here!

Cleaners From Venus ‎– "On Any Normal Monday" (Man At The Off Licence) 1982

The thing about Punk Rock/DIY ethos, is the assumption that anyone can do it. If you wanna make an Industrial record, this is as simple as getting a few recordings from off the Tele, a cheap synth and and an FX unit set to the echo setting; read some W.S. Burroughs, and try to sound like Throbbing Gristle. You will invariably end up with a half decent 'Industrial' cassette to release on your own label. Now, what is really difficult, and actually takes (cough), some talent!?......is writing melodic pop songs. You can't shit out a memorable melody line just like that you know! You need that famous X-Factor,'songcraft'; and Cleaners from Venus had this in buckets. Nearly every song on their first four or five cassettes was a Lo-fi pop classic; some more classic than others, but definitely superbly crafted Pop music. The fact that these songs were hidden away on a bunch of obscure, hand coloured DIy cassettes, make them even more admirable. This is, for want of a better genre, 'Proto-Indie', but still retaining those DIY Punk ideals. They could have been The Smiths if it weren't for some obvious scruples; although these seemed to go missing around 1987, when they re-recorded some 'greatest hits' for RCA!........nobody's perfect? 

Tracklist:
   
Light Side 

A1 Night Starvation 
A2 Tukani (Monday Is Grey) 
A3 A Girl With Cars In Her Eyes 
A4 I Can't Stop (Holding On) 
A5 Living On Nerve Ends 
A6 I Wanna Do That   

Heavy Side 

B1 European War 
B2 Hungry Day 
B3 F.U.N. 
B4 Be An Idiot Pop Star 
B5 Spirit Of Youth In Flames 

DOWNLOAD on any normal monday HERE!

Cleaners From Venus ‎– "Blow Away Your Troubles" (Man At The Off Licence ‎– WOW/002) 1981

As some of you regular readers of this cyber-rag will know, I can't abide "Too clever by 'arf'" bands, like Deep Freeze Mice,The Cardiacs, and The Legendary Pink Dots. The Cleaners From Venus fit nicely into this category, but, I'll have to admit I love 'em. It wasn't always like this; just the merest nano second from any CFV track, would have me looking for something to smash up. Alas, with a more mature outlook, and the need to revisit these cassettes for the purposes of this blog, I have to reassess the merits of this group; and I can now let it be known that I LOVE this band! It may have sounded like the work of some Syd Barrett fans who were so absorbed by The Lord of the Rings and the I Ching, that they missed Punk Rock! But, if one listens a bit deeper, this is a natural progression of classic English Psychedelia,mixed with a, probably, sub-conscious absorption of the contemporary cultural climate. Which, included the oft' mentioned, 'DIY ethic', of which the CFV are a exemplary exponent, which = Punk Rock. Included on this fine C60 of classic socially observant song-craft, includes, among its many eclectic moments, what is now, one of my new favourite songs of all time; with its classic misty eyed portrayal of a lost England, "Wivenhoe Bells". A very 1980's version of 1967 style English whimsy. All this, and the obligatory(for the early 80's) awful whiteboy Reggae number, all recorded in glorious Mono; as Mr Newell says on the cover: "All selections recorded between nov. '80 and april '81 in marvy* mono on a steam-powered hand-cranked-mud-cooled reel to reel." *Note extremely Dodgy use of hippie humour in the word "Marvy" in there, so it ain’t perfect, but pretty close. ps, thanks to Peter Jolly for this superior rip of this tape.Mine was just shite!  

Track Listing:
  
Straight Side:

A1 Swinging London 
A2 A Blue Wave 
A3 Union Lads 
A4 Modern T.V. 
A5 Marilyn On A Train 
A6 Kool Of The Night 
A7 Marathon 
A8 Urban Jungle 
A9 Minimal Animal Bent 

Bent Side:

B1 I Fell In Love With A Cleaner 
B2 So This Is Modern Jazz Is It? 
B3 Wivenhoe Bells 
B4 Change Change Change 
B5 Hey Dreamer 
B6 Alien 
B7 At Home With Myself 
B8 Winter In The Country 
B9 Helpless 
B10 University Challenge 

DOWNLOAD your troubles HERE!

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