Various Artists – "When Things Were Perfect" (Peeved Records – PV020) 1985

More Cambridge indie pop via Southampton from a time when things seemed perfect, but on the evidence presented here, wasn't. .....which as i've mentioned several times before is a kind of perfection?

Trouble is, this nostalgia trip very accurately recreates the sound and feel of the black hole that was left behind by the great fizzle out of yer Punk Rock.

There was nothing left to populate the event horizon except a sliding slagheap of middle class studentia playing uneventful Indie-pop...the Uneventful Horizon as one calls it. With only Shoegaze,Twee, and Ron Johnson to assist in the awful choice between C-86 and Acid House.

Tracklist:

A1 The Deviance – The Other Side
A2 The Deviance – Watch It Burn
A3 The Deviance – Frozen Moments
A4 The Deviance – Savage Days
A5 The Deviance – Self Destruction
A6 The Deviance – Happy World
A7 The Children Of Some Tradition– The Last Resort
A8 The Children Of Some Tradition– Town To Town
B1 Perfect Vision– Scratch And Howl
B2 Perfect Vision– Engines
B3 Perfect Vision– Co-Incidence
B4 Perfect Vision– Hole In The Sole
B5 Perfect Vision– Laugh At Breakage
B6 Red Over White– Killed By His Own Tribe
B7 Red Over White– Suffocation
B8 Red Over White– No Shame

DOWNLOAD from when things were far from perfect HERE!

Various Artists – "Tickled Pink" (Peeved Records – PV021) 1986

One of a few Cambridge compilations from Peeved Records, unfathomably based in Southampton?

It kicks off with some mannered Indie Pop by, according to Discogs, one of the 96 other bands called "Spike". If that was out of a hundred it would correlate with the fact that 96% of all bands in the UK sounded exactly like this in 1985 to '86. Marking the era when everyone had a Portastudio, nice equipment,and knew how to use it. As a result everyone sounded the same.

It was all 'well played' ,enhanced with cheaply available effects unit,and they all thought they were gonna 'make it'. The result is really rather dreadful, as they themselves would have found the DIY stuff from earlier in the decade, which these self-tutored pop stars in their own lunchtimes would have scoffed at, and binned off in favor of sounding like Aztec Camera....WRONG!

Its rather like a teenagers painting, when they try their upmost to be a sophisticate;leaving the real genius of their earlier years gathering dust in the garbage bin. Only a few get to make art decent enough to break through to win the poverty that awaits them.

Although missing the point entirely, the end result is actually rather quaint? Awwww, bless 'em.

The High Tech Pagodas win the silliest name prize,and also the best track award....what on earth were they doing?

Tracklist:

A1 Spike – I Feel You
A2 Spike – Any Choice
A3 The Force – Sweet Little Girl
A4 The Force – Crazy Affair
A5 Vanishing Point– From The Heart
A6 Vanishing Point– Face To Face
A7 The High Tech Pagodas– Free
B1 The Lovely– Aniel I Said
B2 The Lovely– Catherine
B3 Strange Brew – Don't Wanna Be Lonely
B4 Strange Brew – Normandy Sunset
B5 Worlds End Band– The Party
B6 Worlds End Band– The Party Of Light
B7 The Lonely – Nervous Hand
B8 The Lonely – Something Happened Today

DOWNLOAD and have your pink bits tickled HERE!

Various Artists - "Felixstowe Rocks" (Peeved Records – PV008) 1983

 

Felixstowe,on the evidence provided here, certainly does NOT Rock!

And the artistes and groups bands and duo's featured on this compilation all sound the same,or,in other words,they all seem to try to be an East Anglian Durutti Column.

I suspect this to be one of them Fake compilations,where one person tries to be person plural,per-son-zzz in fact. Yeah, we all believe the person (singular) has lots of groovy musician friends,and comes from a happening sector out in the sticks where everyone is Vinni Reilly.

One was never acquainted with any thriving music scene in Felixstowe ever,but indeed there was one in Norwich in the mid eighties I recall,but Felixstowe...Nah!. Famed for its Ferry port, and enormous container traffic capacity, but music,specifically 'Rock' music,it simply cannot be.....and why not? The only rocking this east England backwater does is the constant swell of the converging wakes from the massive container ships of the kind that are being attacked by Houthi Guerrillas in the Red Sea.I challenge thee to Write a rocking tune about that

It was all done by one Robert Cox,unlikely impresario of the Unlikely cassette label in the mid eighties i understand;who appears under his own name on this very compilation,and is,himself, the other artistes and groups, bands and duo's.

Here's what that cheeky so and so has to say on the subject:

"FELIXSTOWE ROCKS was a fake sampler of music being created in the town; it was almost all me. There is a conceptual joke in the title; this was/is not rock music and Felixstowe does not have any rocks. There are sandy and pebbly beaches below sandstone cliffs."
Robert Cox - December, 2020

I wish they did Rock in Felixstowe,then maybe this comp wouldn't be so dull....more Nosebleeds and lots less Durutti would do.....or maybe this chap invented Post-Rock and I'm too thick to see it?

Tracklist:

A1 General Motors– Tubular Turd
A2 Piers Of The Realm– Manic
A3 Someone Else – Something Else
A4 Robert Cox– Sync Or Swim (Original Version)
A5 General Motors– Tubular Turd (Reprise)
A6 The Same – If You Want To, Do So!
A7 The Same – Base Parts
A8 The Same – Instrumental 7/3/82
A9 The Same – 453-549
B1 The Same – Instrumental 18/3/82
B2 The Same – Welsh Water
B3 Robert Cox– D Scapes (Major, Mixolydian, Dorian, Chinese, Major)

DOWNLOAD from this rockless ferry port HERE!