Lets take that Ferry 'cross the Mersey to Birkenhead. Only been there a cople of times, to see Leicester City play Tranmere Rovers.Memorably, during an uninspiring 0-0 draw in the play-off semi-finals around 1994-ish, I remember clearly my girlfriend being hit in the face by a large inflatable dolphin with 'Blue Army' written on the side of it.She was press-ganged by me to go in the first place as we were accidently on purpose driving by the region....so she was far from a happy bunny on that ocassion....'LOL!' Another time me and my footy mates were looking for parking near the ground, and a nice scouse lady ran out into the street and directed us into her driveway.......no it wasn't a naughty scouse strategy to rob us; she was just displaying some famous Northern hospitality.The car was still intact after we beat them!?
Not sure the people from Birkenhead call themselves 'Scouse' at all,but everyone else does.One suspects thats only a term applied to inhabitants of neighbouring Liverpool, but I'll have to do my usual 'Scouse' jokes to brighten the day up a bit?????.....No?
Ok...What do you call a Scouser in a white shellsuit?.......The Bride!
2- Whats a Scouser in a Suit called?.....The Accused?
3- A scouser in a Semi-Detatched house is a what?......That's right....a Burgler!
Funny stuff eh?.....just like all those hilarious(not) Scouser comedians, like Ken Dodd, Stan 'The Geeeermans' Boardman, and Tom O'Connor (Who????)
I suppose this is a local band from Birkenhead compilation masquerading as a Skeleton Records promo disc.Lots of suitably melodic power pop and New Wave, from a bunch of scallies living under the dark shadow of Gerry and the Pacemakers;whom i had the pleasure of witnessing supporting Ken Dodd at the Skegness pier theatre in 1974.....the next band I saw was Suicide at Leicester Granby Halls in 1978,supporting the Clash.Now,.... Suicide supporting Ken Dodd would be something? I'd pay plenty dollah to see that, if only the main protagonists weren't very dead! Only Martin Rev survives from that fantasy double bill from the right kind of Hell.
Tracklist:
A1 –Geisha Girls Doctor
A2 –Afraid Of Mice I'm Not A Fighter
A3 –Attempted Moustache No Way Out
A4 –Walking Boys Don't Worry
A5 –Luminous Beings Myself And My Heroes
A6 –The Relations One More Record
A7 –Stopouts Just For You And Me
A8 –Wayne Hussey And The Dance Goes On
B1 –Luminous Beings T.V. Can Kill
B2 –Afraid Of Mice Trans-parent
B3 –Walking Boys Leave You Alone
B4 –Zorkie Twins Little Arthur
B5 –Upsets I Don't Know Why
B6 –Luminous Beings Shadows Of Giants
B7 –Windows When The Music's Over
As occurs with Film sequels, they are normally terrible, and up the ante by repeating the good bits from the original over and over again,by adding more of them.Like Jaws 2, where instead of one kid getting munched down in the sea, theres loads of them getting munched down.
As they were awful whiney american middle class teens, we enjoyed that immensly, never mind how shite the film was. I could watch American Teens getting liquidized all day long, its like spending hours in a flotation tank for me.....very relaxing.
Street To Street Volume 2, paradoxically, fails to learn the lessons of Jaws 2, and repeats all the worst bits from volume 1 over and over again, until you're glad there's only 10 tracks to endure.There aren't even any recordings of American Teenagers getting mutilated,to ease the seemingly endless Flock of Seagull-isms and help oneself get over the fact that this is 40 minutes you'll never get back.
I remember thinking that The Cooling Towers were ok,and 'The Thesis' is probably the best track on the album.Their second contribution is ruined by some terrible six-form Ian Cutis-isms,as the compilers try to claw back some post-punk creedence from Manchester.....and fail cluelessly.
The rest are similar in the local scenes attempt to be Section 25's less talented brother, or even Flock of Seagulls less talented cousin's sister.
I don't think the bands on here ever made it to be 'Jaws 3D'? They faded away long before they could inflict that nonsense upon us.
Apart from that i quite enjoyed it really.....I am a Flock of Seagulls fan after all(not Joking!)
Tracklist:
A1 –Egypt For Now - Days On Edge
A2 –Cooling Towers - The Thesis
A3 –Systems - Total Recall
A4 –Chinese Religion - Eden
A5 –Games - Unrest In The Real World
B1 –Games - The Song
B2 –Systems - Glare Of The Lights
B3 –Cooling Towers - Make This Day End Soon
B4 –Egypt For Now - Soldiers
B5 –Chinese Religion - Chambers
Not one of my favorite local compilations is this one,especially listening to it now; it seems even more dated these days,logically, than it did back in '79.
Liverpool kinda missed the post-punk,and punk rock boats by some distance.Blighted by that weighty melodic curse of the Beatles' long shadow,and wilting under the heat radiating from the northern powerhouse of Punk/post-punk capital,Manchester.
It starts off with the truly terrible 'Big In Japan',jam-packed with attention seekers ,and 'future members' of more sucessful dross......like a scouse 'London SS',but with members of the 'Bromley Contingent' instead of Generation X* (*er...wasn't Billy Idol one of the Bromley mob?) ,Damned and the Clash. Musically they had more in common with Generation X,no tunes but lots of posing. To paraphrase John Peel from the sleeve notes ,'a Quixotic conerstone' of the Liverpool scene.
Points of interest are, a track by Orchestral Manoeuveres in the Dark, before they were called Orchestral Manoeuveres in the Dark; in this case The ID. There's also an Echo and the Bunnymen track from before they had a real drummer,and used a drumbox called 'Echo';awful stuff.
The rest sounds like demos of minor chart hits from 1974,or some scally reggae numbers or melodic power pop by people who can't write melodies,sung by people who can't sing trying their level best to sing 'properly', ugh!
The only saving grace is that there's No 'Teardrop Explodes' or 'Wah!Heat!' on here.
Tracklist:
A1 –Big In Japan - Match Of The Day
A2 –The ID - Julia's Song
A3 –Jaqui & Jeanette - 194 Radio City
A4 –Modern Eon - Benched Down/70s Sixties
A5 –Activity Minimal - Television Game
A6 –Dead Trout - The Arab
B1 –Tontrix - Screen Love
B2 –The Accelerators - Radio Blues
B3 –Malchix - Crisis
B4 –Fun - I Heared You Call My Name
B5 –The Moderates - I Don't Want To Go Bald
B6 –Echo & The Bunnymen - Monkies
