The Mud Hutters ‎– "Factory Farming" (Defensive Records ‎– NATO 3) 1980

" A Small car dwiven at high speed phwoo a cwowded stweet"???? This is worth it just for forcing the singer to sing that line when he has a pronounced lisp. Up there with Toyah's "It'th a mythdery" as the one of the most inadviseable adventures into verbal gymnastics in pop history. Awwww bless?
Check out the lovely Toyah sending herself up on legendary UK 'kids' saturday morning show "Tiswas" back in '81, singing "I'm A Misery", and getting pied by 'The Phantom Flan Flinger'.....click here,it's great stuff.

Oh yes,nearly forgot...., The Mud Hutters were superb post-punky proggy classic UK DIY(but with obvious musicianly talents,especially the drummer), and use the same cheapo organ that all those Manchester bands had at that time,like The Fall and The Spherical Objects; probably the actual same organ that they shared about to save the cash they didn't have.

Tracklist:

A1 Taking The Biscuit
A2 I Can Be
A3 Small Car
A4 Feels Right
A5 Page 39
A6 Bowl Of Cherries
B1 MPC With Me
B2 Coloured Glass
B3 On The Beach
B4 Cultivation
B5 Page 41
B6 Rearranging

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The Mud Hutters ‎– "The Declaration EP" (Defensive Records ‎– N.A.T.O. TWO) 1979

A declaration of independance that hasn't become as Ironic as its more celebrated political cousin in the new world.....(Notice I ignored the opportunity to make a NWO pun,mainly because I no longer recognise its existence outside the fantasies of the paranoid masses).
Basically any group which has a lead singer with a speech impediment and a future Diagram brother in it has to be good?......I can confirm that they are very good by the way!Perfect,art damaged lo-fi post-punk from manchester in 1979....can't get better than that combination of wow factors?!
In fact there's more Mud Hutters on the "Four Ways Out" compilation, also on their own Defensive Records label.

Tracklist:

Bouncy Side:

A1 Water Torture
A2 Chances
A3 Stabbings

Hot Side:

B1 Fragments
B2 Danger
B3 It Doesn't Seem To Help Now

I declare this DOWNLOAD open!

The Mud Hutters ‎– "Information EP" (Defensive Records ‎– N.A.T.O. ONE) 1979

As well as The Diagram Brothers, and Dislocation Dance, Andy Diagram was in The Mud Hutters; a lo-fi prog-punk combo who could obviously play their instruments.That's right, a post punk group that included musicians!? Especially impressed by the jazz rock drumming of 'Muddy Dick' (Who I assume was Richard Harrison? Who played with such liminaries as God Is My Co-Pilot,Sterolab,and of course, Dislocation Dance, among many others)
This 33rpm 7" EP, fitted in nicely with the DIY look;the hand printed sleeve,appropriately  muddy sound, standard junior typewriter typeface, and a bunch of unpretentious choons.
"No God" has a disposable John Barry-esque melody line that would not have gone unplaced on an early Dislocation dance record.

Tracklist:

A1 No God
A2 Nice Guy/Left Right
B1 All About
B2 Neolithic Dub

DOWNLOAD from the information EP superhighway HERE!

Dislocation Dance ‎– "Music Music Music" (New Hormones ‎– ORG 15) 1981

The title of this LP by Mancunian Indie-Jazz combo, Dislocation Dance, should really have been 'Muzak Muzak Muzak' and played in shopping malls everywhere,the BBC2 afternoon test-card, with the odd daytime TV theme tune thrown in.Very pleasant it is too, in a Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass meets Belle and Sebastian kind of way.
It comes from around the time that groups like Weekend, and Everything but the Girl were polluting the proto-indie stream with their Jazzy Pop blandness.This at least has something spookily strange about its post-punk easy listening vibe, and if it was less 'cool' would have not been out of place being spun in the chill-out rooms of clubbing culture in the nineties.If this was by the Harvey Averne Dozen I would have bought it for the second time around in 1995.
A weird fact is that is was released on the label that kick started the DIY boom, the Buzzcocks' New Hormones, and features Andy Diagram of the wonderful Diagram Brothers, moonighting, on the Trumpet.
They were in fact a lot less polished than this,and a tad more Post-Punky and funky when they appeared on the classic UK DIY Manchester Musicians Collective compilation "Four Ways Out" only the year previously.How fast things moved in them thar days?

Tracklist:

A1 Stand Me Up
A2 Don't Knock Me Down
A3 YOPS Course
A4 Meeting Mum And Dad
A5 Friendship
A6 Take A Chance (On Romance)...
A7 ...Have A Chance
B1 Roof Is Leaking
B2 With A Smile On Your Face And A Frown In Your Heart
B3 Vendetta (Theme)
B4 Narrow Laughs
B5 Footloose
B6 Can't Race Time... And The Mad Killer (Coda)
B7 Wonder What I'll Do Tomorrow

Bonus Tracks:

15 Rosemary (7" single)

16 Shake (B-Side)

17 Can't Race Time....& The Mad killer (12" Version)

18 You'll Never Know (7" Single)

19 You Can Tell (B-Side)

DOWNLOAD some Muzak Muzak Muzak HERE!

The Diagram Brothers ‎– "Some Marvels Of Modern Science + Singles 1980-82" (New Hormones ORG 17) 1981

Twenty-four prog-punk parables for modern living from 1980/82, showcasing the British love of ironic pentameter and satire.

The horrors of WMD's juxtaposed with such banal evils as built-in obsolescence, hypochondria,and city councils, reveal through discordant music and humour that hell is more likely to be at next door's fondue soirée rather than deep underground somewhere.

The satire even has predictive qualities too! If only more than a couple of thousand,probably already enlightened people had heard and absorbed "I'm not going to fight for Oil" then we wouldn't be in the bath of shit that we find ourselves in today?......well at least a different bath of shit anyway!?

After all, we are ALL animals, aren't we?

Tracklist:

1 Those Men In White Coats 3:07
2 My Bad Chest Feels Much Better Now 3:30
3 Seals / Furcoats 2:17
4 Put It In A Bigger Box 2:42
5 Words From Major 3:22
6 Here Come The Visitors 3:06
7 Isn't It Interesting How Neutron Bombs Work 4:01
8 Ron! The Morris Minor's Gone 3:12
9 I'm A Policeman 1:23
10 I Didn't Get Where I Am Today By Being A Right Git 3:51
11 Aggeravation 3:06
12 I'm Not Going To Fight For Oil 2:46
13 Litter 1:34
14 Bikers 3:30

Bonus Tracks:

15 Bricks 2:43
16 Postal Bargains 1:56
17 Discordo 3:29
18 My Dinner 2:52
19 Fondue Soiree 3:31
20 Cherry Blossom 2:07
21 We Are All Animals 2:40
22 There Is No Shower 2:19
23 I Would Like To Live In Prison 0:52
24 Right Git (German Version) 3:30

Tracks 15 and 16 originally released as 7" "Bricks" in 1981. 
Tracks 17 to 20 originally released as 10" EP "Discordo" in 1982. 
Tracks 21 to 23 originally released as 7" EP "We Are All Animals" in 1980. 
Track 24 originally released on 7" "German EP" in 1982.

DOWNLOAD some marvels of post punk britain HERE!

The Diagram Brothers - "Peel Sessions 1980-82"

Post Prog genii, The Diagram Brothers, show us that shifting tempo's, unusual time signatures, can combine within the short song format, and still include humour ,funk and punk.
Bill Bruford and his proggy chums from 'Yes' would struggle to cope with the disciplines required to play these tunes.The difference between 'Yes' and The Diagram Brothers being that 'Yes' are utter shite, and the DB's are very good.
These sessions include the best versions of DB's classics such as 'Bricks', 'We Are All Animals' and 'Postal Bargains', among a plethora of similarly skewed and abstract Prog-punk classics.
They called it a day in 1983, understandably, because it was almost impossible to progress from here, other than endlessly repeating oneself, which is what a lot of groups tend to do.
The Diagram did the noble thing and packed it all in once they had got this stuff out there. Similar bands, like The Cardiacs and XTC carried on in the same vane; except XTC did manage to devolve into a pastoral post-psychedelic song factory until they burnt out, and The Cardiacs eventually had to stop because of serious Illness's.There seems to be a physical barrier to prevent this type of progressive pop from going further,rather like the finite limit of the speed of light?

Tracklist:

17/03/1980:

1. We Are All Animals
2. Bricks
3. Bikers
4. There Is No Shower

27/01/1981:
5. Postal Bargains
6. Those Men In White Coats
7. I Didn't Get Where I Am Today By Being A Right Git
8. My Bad Chest Feels Much Better Now

26/06/1982:
9. Hey Dad!
10. Tracey
11. You've Got To Pick A Pocket Or Two
12. The Expert
13. You'll Never Walk Alone

DOWNLOAD some interesting diagrams HERE!