The Great Leap Forward – "Controlling The Edges Of Tone" (Ron Johnson Records – ZRON 20) 1987

It all started to go WRONG with Ron Johnson Records, previously Thee perfect record Label, when bIG fLAME broke up,leaving us with Singer and Bassist Alan Brown's (a pop star's name if ever there wasn't one?) new poppier vehicle "The Great Leap Forward".

Firstly the band name rang alarm bells warning of trendy left wing alignment, to keep open ambitions to join the second coming of any potential "Red Wedge" tour with such like-minded righteous soap boxers as ex-tory Paul Weller's Style-less council, and the brain cell crushing awfulness that was,and sadly still is...Billy Bragg.....who incidentally had a song which went by the same name as Alan's new pinko pop chartbound flops.

As far as i was concerned,having eagerly purchased the debut EP "Controlling The Edges Of Sound", this was more the Great Leap Backwards from the cubist pop perfection of bIG fLAME. 

Right-on lefty lyrics aside,the music is a kind of B-movie version of Haircut 100's bastard child with Josef K.....which sounds quite promising,does it not?.....but it didn't even achieve that.Quite disappointed I was.

Listening to it again,removed from such idealistic times....its not bad....it really does sound like Haircut 100 grafted on to everyone's favourite Kafka cloned Edinburgher's.

Amusingly dated references to the E.E.C.(if only it stayed like that instead of the unwieldy soopah state of today's EU?) and the Common agricultural policy (C.A.P.),which gave us Wine lakes,Butter mountains, and Grain surplus's bigger than the Sahara desert.What would we all give to have that kind of resource at hand today with this idiotic war going on?

Yep...let's Jive While We're Still Alive.....i'm currently tapping my foot to this,so there's still hope.

Tracklist:

Side Head:
A1 Hope's Not Enough, Son - Ask Your Parents 3:17
A2 If The C.A.P's Flat, Than Waive It 3:58

Side Arrow:
B1 Let's Jive While We're Still Alive 2:42
B2 My Grandfather's Cluck 4:31

DOWNLOAD while you're still alive HERE!

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!

bIG⋆fLAME* - "The Peel Sessions 1984-86" (another Die or DIY? compilation)

Scratchy funk cubists bIG⋆fLAME*,you will not be surprised to know, did a lot of John Peel sessions during their brief tenure at the forefront of subverting the 'pop' idiom.
Always a smashed mirror image of Orange Juice ,they pasted the shards back in the frame like a cut-up sonic novel,confusing the human need to look for patterns in chaos.
Compare these versions to the studio equivalents released on vinyl, and you will see there was indeed method in the madness;they were actually repeatable compositions and not bags of random noise with a re-used title after all?!
These ardent northern left-wingers also had a sense of humour(!), which downgraded their genius in the music aficionados rigid scale of 'good'.
These sessions included a couple of tongue-in-cheek cover versions,or conversions, including one of Wham's atrocious "Wake me up before you go-go"; which refers to the bands early 'fake news' release that they were once Wham's backing band.This was quickly taken as 'fact' by the man in the pub,to become an indie myth. Be careful when you mix humour with music.....it can destroy you.....and invariably does.Intelligence is needed.


Track listing:

1st Peel Session 16/07/1984

1. Breath Of A Nation 

2. Debra 

3. Man Of Few Syllables 

4. Sargasso

2nd Peel Session 17/02/1985

5. All The Irish Must Go To Heaven 

6. New Way 

7. Chanel Samba 

8. These Boots Are Made For Working

3rd Peel Session 17/11/1985

9.  Earsore 

10. Let's Rewrite The American Constitution 

11. Cat With Cholic 

12. Every Conversation

4th Peel Session 04/05/1986

13. Sink (Get Out Of The Ghetto Blues Part 1) 

14. Xpqwrtz (Pronounced Tshh!)

15. Three On Baffled Island (The Hard Rock Movement)

16. Testament To The Slow Death Of Youth Culture

    (Wake me up when its all over)

DOWNLOAD to reignite the flame HERE!

bIG⋆fLAME* ‎– "Rigour 1983-1986" (Drag City/Ron Johnson Records)

I was going to carry on with some more Anarcho-Punk stuff, and listened to Flux Of Pink Indians early fuzzy hardcore stuff.It wasn't long before my mind drifted away thinking of music i actually like.....Ah! Ron Johnson Records; one of those record labels that demanded one bought everything it unleashed, briefly, back  in the mid-eighties. One of those labels that had its own sound and identity,like Factory,4AD,and Rough trade (all before they got gentrified of course).
There was undoubtedly a Captain Beefheart flavour to all of the Ron Johnson Bands, disjointed tunes, in funny time signatures, barbed with a slab of spikey energy; the acceptable side of the C-86 Indie era.
My thought immediately went to bIG fLAME, who's music makes Flux of Pink Indians the musical equivalent of a dose of Mogadon. (Although, Flux did make an LP with one of the most succinct  album titles ever...check "The Fucking Cunts Treat Us like Pricks!" album HERE!)
bIG⋆fLAME*'s tunes are indeed the equivalent of Trout Mask Replica stuck on fast forward,with all three band members playing in different time signatures at 100MPH. A kind of art damaged scratchy funk crossed with the sound of a skip full of boxes and tins being emptied at a land-fill site somewhere between your ears.
Never having released a long player amidst their multifarious singles, ep's and mini-albums; there was a need for a compilation collecting them all together in one place.
So here it is,thanks to American label Drag City.Americans aren't that stupid after all?

Tracklist:

1 Sink
2 Sometimes
3 The Illness
4 Man Of Few Syllables
5 Debra
6 Sargasso
7 All The Irish (Must Go To Heaven)
8 ¡Cuba!
9 Where's Our Carol?
10 Why Popstars Can't Dance
11 Chanel Samba
12 Breath Of A Nation
13 Every Conversation
14 New Way (Quick Wash And Brush Up With Liberation Theology)
15 Cat With Cholic
16 Earsore
17 Three On Baffled Island (The Hardrock Movement)
18 Let's Rewrite The American Constitution
19 XPQWRTZ

DOWNLOAD an earsore from a baffled island HERE!