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
5. All The Irish Must Go To Heaven
6. New Way
7. Chanel Samba
8. These Boots Are Made For Working
9. Earsore
10. Let's Rewrite The American Constitution
11. Cat With Cholic
12. Every Conversation
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)
6 comments:
Wow, thanks for these! I first came across Big Flame via the "Manchester So Much To Answer For" Peel comp back in 1990 and finally tracked down a copy of "Riguor" around 98 (since internet made it a lot easier to find/order rare/oop imports). I've often described my fascination with them to the uninitiated by relating "anything that makes me want to flail around like i'm on the verge of a caffeine overdose it OK by me" :)
Any chance you have the Bene Gesserit "Kidnapping" 7" (or the 2012 CD reissue of "Happy, High.." which includes it as bonus)? Or the Astaron "Das Grauen Aus Dem All / As I Start" cassette to post in the near future?
Cheers, Mark
Sorry no Das Grauen, or kidnapping.
Glad Big Flame makes you flail with unbridled joy.
Keep it up.
Any chance for higher quality rips of all these gems in the future? 24bit lossless or the like?
This stuff should really be preserved long term and the best way to do that is have it on many drives across the blogoverse.
I could have a go at some FLAC versions one supposes, being you have shamed me for my quality levels!.....not soon though.
No worries, and not trying to shame you...better to have them at any bit rate than not at all. :)
But I see more and more music blogs trying to up the game in that regard, and it makes sense to me as a source of preservation. If you can find a good used one, the Creative SB X-Fi is an awesome platform for ripping.
Great blog Sir. Will without doubt be spending more time here.
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