Dovers - Rehearsals 2.2, 3 & 4.1 (1987) C90

Here's another one of negligible interest to everybody except those who were actually in the band at the time, namely me and Carl, and it's not even like either of us will be playing this shit on a daily basis; but nevertheless, here it is, should you require it.

The first five tracks are obviously just me pissing about with my Casio SK1 whilst watching Eastenders - note backing vocals by Nick Cotton. The rest is Carl and myself rehearsing, jamming, or whatever the hell you want to call it at Hollytree House in Otham, then at the place I moved to in Glencoe Road in Chatham, and finally at Carl's place in Bermondsey at various times during 1987. I can't be arsed to work out what belongs to which rehearsal and where, or how the previous tape segues into this one, but it probably doesn't matter and an inlay card's worth of notes are included in the download if you care enough to work it out.

For what it may be worth, the arbitrarily named Ghost in My Kilt - end of side one, beginning of side two on the cassette - is here welded into a single track because it seemed to make marginally more sense that way. Also, if you're downloading this out of curiosity due to the presence of two apparent covers of a Slade song, personally I wouldn't bother. That said, most of side two sounds decent to me, thanks in part to Carl having picked up a drum machine which sounds pretty decent recorded through a speaker and over a crappy condenser microphone, and in part to the songs beginning to emerge as songs rather than vaguely repetitive interludes during longer periods of wibbling and general fucking about. Well, that said, it all sounds fine to me, but then it would, wouldn't it?

Download the twenty-four tracks and cover by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - East End Gristle
2 - Dangerous Farmers
3 - Clocks Ain't Goth
4 - Violent Violin
5 - Beastie Burton
6 - Mucking About
7 - Piece of Meat
8 - Batman's Personal Friend
9 - Robin Hood
10 - Catch the Pigeon
11 - Cum On Feel the Noize I
12 - Cum On Feel the Noize II
13 - Fever
14 - Space Travel
15 - Ghost in My Kilt
16 - Public Image
17 - Beat Me Black & Blue
18 - B.L.A.C.Clowns
19 - A.I.D.X.
20 - Misery List
21 - Fatback
22 - Misery List
23 - B.L.A.C.Clowns
24 - Beat Me Black & Blue

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Soul Providers - Cipactli Nahuatlamatl (1998) C90

I first met Ed Pinsent through comic books and his involvement with Fast Fiction, then later came to know him a little better when I realised that we lived in roughly the same part of London and shared an interest in weirdy music, as expressed by Ed starting his own magazine and asking if I would like to contribute. The magazine was called The Sound Projector and still exists today in concert with an associated radio programme broadcast on Resonance FM, all of which should be investigated by following this link. Anyway, back in 1997, both Ed and myself were furrowing along related musical parallels. My crap is sporadically documented right here on this blog, whilst Ed recorded and performed with Attack Wave Pestrepeller (famously including Savage Pencil) and Mystery Dick - improvised and occasionally noisy outfits whose works on vinyl and compact disc are well worth the effort of hunting down should you feel so inclined. I vaguely recall Ed and myself recording together mainly because it seemed crazy not to, given certain shared musical interests, although it may also have been significant that Alan Mason's girlfriend had given me an electric piano and Ed was quite keen to have a go on it. The electric piano was free on the grounds of it being the size of a small car and that Alan's girlfriend had grown tired of carting it around with her each time she moved. The contacts could have done with a clean, and the thing was so huge that I ended up giving it away for the exact same reasons that the thing had come into my possession; but it had a good sound, so it was nice that Ed made such great use of the thing whilst it was around, not least because his tickling of ivories had a little more going for it than my characteristic one fingered Gary Numan tributes.

Anyway, the story behind these tracks beyond that which is already described above is that we set up every instrument or sound producing object we had at our disposal in my living room and just improvised, although the first three significantly shorter tracks were recorded by making stuff up along to an already improvised backing track bounced onto my tape deck. I was probably worrying about them sounding too sparse or something.

The titles and artwork were more or less arbitrary choices derived from my Mesoamerican fixation of the time, as was the name of our "group" - the Soul Providers, which I liked because it sounded more like some RnB thing than a bunch of noise merchants, and I was mostly listening to RnB at the time. I'm not sure what Ed ever thought of the names or my turning this stuff into tapes, although Soul Providers didn't make him frown quite so hard as had my first suggestion - Shinjuku District, which came from a Godzilla film and I now realise would have been a dreadful choice. I had the impression he was really mainly just interested in the music, the improvisation and so on; which is fair enough. Listening to this stuff nearly two decades later I realise I still enjoy it. It still sounds good to me - at least once you get over the terrible hiss generated by the recording process of the first three tracks. In fact, I'm actually sort of proud of this tape, which isn't something I can say about many of them.

Download the five tracks and cover by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Tepetlaoztoc
2 - Eight Deer Jaguar Claw
3 - Amplifier
4 - First Migration
5 - Chiconahui Cuetzpallin

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Spinning Pygmies - Spinning Pygmies II (1987) C60

I've already told the full boring story in as much detail as anyone could possibly need, so I refer you to this previous blog entry in order to avoid repeating myself. This second tape featured our second and third rehearsals, such as they were, with a line up of Carl and myself augmented - if that's quite the right word - by Garreth Roberts, usually playing second guitar, and Mark Smith on sax depending who had bothered to turn up on time. Both sessions occurred at Hollytree House, Otham, Kent during the Spring of 1987, and actually most of this is the second rehearsal but for tracks ten to twelve as listed below, which comprise the third.

Preamble was recorded some time later by myself with a guitar and a Casio keyboard sat in front of a tape recorder, hence the distinct difference in quality. It's actually one of four tracks on the original cassette which I presume I recorded alone for the sake of filling up the tape, and one of these tracks mentions the Dovers - the group we became in the wake of Spinning Pygmies - so it must have been a bit later. I haven't included the rest of these solo tracks in the download because the other three are all just me impersonating Carl and singing about being gay and how I regularly entertain sailors in my flat and so on - this being an example of my retarded sense of humour. I would argue that the censored tracks are too inept and stupid to be mistaken for genuine homophobia, but listening back to them now makes me nevertheless uncomfortable mainly because they're shite even by my unambitious standards, and just not very funny.

Mind you, I'm not saying the rest of this is particularly amazing, but there are probably bits you could play to Wire reading arseholes as obscure Faust outtakes or something, especially the stuff with Mark playing sax.

Download the twelve tracks by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Money Can't Buy
2 - Appreciate You Being Round
3 - Noise
4 - No Cigars
5 - Makes No Sense
6 - Preamble
7 - Black and Blue
8 - Deliverance
9 - Duelling Kazoos
10 - CNAM
11 - Here's Fatty I
12 - Here's Fatty II

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Fysisk Fostran - Vi Behöver Ett Odöpt Barn (1983) C60

I have no idea about this one beyond that it was sent to me by Lennart Eilersen of Selbstmord in Sweden, the man who helped birth this masterpiece. I've barely listened to the thing over the years, but mainly because the actual cassette tape looked like one of those five for a quid crappo specials you would buy either from car boot sales or Sid's electronics shop in Church Street in Shipston, and I suspected it was only a matter of time before my player chewed the thing up. This is a shame because listening to it now I realise I like it a lot, and that it at least lives up to the promise of obscure Swedish avant-noise. The more I listen to this stuff, the more I wish someone had dragged these guys into a fancy studio and given this material the blistering production it deserves.

Nosing around on the internet I'm pleased to find there are actually a couple of Krabbkropp tracks on YouTube, apparently posted by one of the group, who gives this account:

Krabbkropp were a duo consisting of Robert Lagerström and Patrik Lager who were active in Stenungsund, Sweden around 1980-81. The band expanded in 1982 to incorporate additional "musicians" and were called Brosk for a period, releasing a few cassettes under that name before becoming Fysisk Fostran later that year. As Fysisk Fostran they released a number of additional cassettes and a 7" EP called Day of Reckoning.

It took me years to work out quite what the hell this was, who it was actually by, and whether it was some sort of split tape or not, but I guess what we have is basically a compilation of what was more or less the same group of people at different stages. Krabbkropp became Fysisk Fostran - meaning something like either Physical Education or Physical Upbringing - and I guess the Dance of the Washer-Woman material was recorded by one of the same people.

Whilst researching this oddity I couldn't help but notice that someone else has already posted a freebie download of the same, but I've gone right ahead and posted mine regardless seeing as I'd already spent half a day editing the thing. It can't hurt and maybe one of our respective digitisations is better than the other, hence greater choice for the consumer. Plus the site seems worth a look. God bless capitalism etc.

Download the nineteen tracks and cover by clicking on this link.

Fysisk Fostran - Vi Behöver ett Odöpt Barn We Need an Unbaptised Child

1 - Intro / Vill Era Gäster Ha Fiber? (live) Do Your Guests Want to Have Fiber?
2 - Det Blodrika Djuret The Blood-Rich Animal
3 - Döda Lollos Mamma (KK) Mother of Dead Lollo
4 - Vi Var Gudar (Vi Tog Betalt För Oss) We Were Gods (We Got Paid)
5 - Jag Har Ett Möte Med Jim H. Gud I Have a Meeting with Jim H. God
6 - Det Mystiska Talet 'E' The Mysterious Number 'E'
7 - Vill Era Gäster Ha Fiber? Do Your Guests Want to Have Fiber?
8 - Den Förtroliga Kammaren The Confidential Chamber
9 - Vi Kan Allt Få Dig Att Springa! We Can Really Make You Jump!
10 - När Arkeologerna Grävde Upp Min Hustrus Kropp When Archaeologists Dug Up My Wife's Body
11 - Jag Har Tältata Med Döden I Have Camped with Death

Krabbkropp

12 - Krabbkropp Crab Body
13 - Ett Krabbigt Förslag A "Crabby" Proposal
14 - Krabbornas Bröllop Crab Wedding
15 - Krabbans Klagan Crab's Lament
16 - Krabbkaka Crab Cake
17 - Krabbkroppar Crab Bodies

Dance of the Washer-Woman - Som Bombsplitter I Själen As Bomb Shrapnel in the Soul

18 - part one
19 - part two

Many thanks to Nils Inge Graven for the translations.

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