More Dovers Stuff...

Every Sunday I stand before the shelf of about three hundred cassette tapes thus far liberated from the slightly larger collection still at my mum's place back in England, then pick a couple of tapes to digitise - usually something by the Pre-War Busconductors which no-one reading this is ever likely to hear, and something for this blog based on whoever hasn't had a tape on here for download in the last couple of weeks - just to mix it up a bit and keep things moving, alternating between lost classics and the stuff no-one but me cares about. This week I picked a Dovers tape and noticed that it contained half of a gig in addition to the usual rehearsal material. The second half of the same gig had been recorded on a different tape in the name of maximising space and avoiding ownership of too many cassettes with just a few things recorded on the beginning of side one. It seemed a bit mad to present a recording of a gig in separate instalments, so I've digitised the lot and rationalised the material into the equivalent of three cassettes (as listed below).

Download the tapes by clicking on the titles and following the links:

The Dovers - Rehearsals 7 & 8 (1988) C90.

Both rehearsals at my miserable bedsit in Glencoe Road, Chatham and recorded quietly so as to avoid enraging the stinking alcoholic in the next bedsit. Tracks 1 to 11 date from Sunday the 10th of January, 1988, and I think the rest were Saturday the 16th of January with this bloke called Andy Bibby sat watching, smoking my snouts, drinking my tea, and probably chuckling away in the background. One of these tracks slags off a load of Medway bands, but I'm not going to tell you which one so you'll just have to download it and listen to the lot if you care that much. Fatback is the Link Wray song, obviously.

Tracks:
1 - Callin' My Boots Dave
2 - Wanna Buy Me Some Boots
3 - Beat Me Black & Blue
4 - The Insect
5 - Misery List
6 - Batman's Personal Friend
7 - Wanna Buy Me Some Boots
8 - Callin' My Boots Dave
9 - Fatback
10 - Mammy
11 - Come Off Everybody
12 - Brown House Music
13 - Piece of Meat
14 - Pizza to Go
15 - Come Off Everybody
16 - Beat Me Black & Blue

The Dovers - Rehearsals 9 & 10 (1988) C90.

Our numbers expanded seeing as we had a gig coming up. Chris, our drummer from Total Big, was available once again to bash the skins, plus Martin de Sey was now living in the gloomy bedsit directly beneath mine, so it seemed like it might be fun to have him play bass. Martin was a founding member of the Cravats and had previously been in To The Max with Carl and Chris - and also Smilin' Paul Mercer of Apricot Brigade and Envy if anyone is interested. This rehearsal (the first eighteen tracks) was in the garage of Chris's dad's house in Kemsley on Sunday the 17th of January, 1988. I'm not sure about the date of the remaining three tracks, except that we were back down to just Carl and myself in the wake of the Sunset Strip gig and Carl had obviously just got hold of his Yamaha REX-50 effects thing. Many Years Ago is a cover of a Sexton Ming song - whom both of us worshipped as a God at the time - and I'm Not Telling You was just us mucking about with the riff from I'm Telling You by the Sceptres, which was Martin's previous band.

Tracks:
1 - I Wanna Be Your Dog
2 - He Believes 
3 - Hail Fellow Well Met
4 - Batman's Personal Friend
5 - Top of the Pops
6 - A.I.D.X.
7 - Louie Louie
8 - I'm Not Telling You
9 - Pizza to Go I
10 - Pizza to Go II
11 - Are You My Mother? I
12 - Are You My Mother? II
13 - The Breakthrough I
14 - The Breakthrough II
15 - The Insect
16 - Big Girl's Blouse
17 - Rock Sandwich
18 - Silver Machine
19 - Many Years Ago
20 - The Insect
21 - The Breakthrough (extended) 

The Dovers - Live Sunset Strip 27.1.88 (1988) C46.

It was billed as a duos evening, and we had been asked because we were ordinarily a duo. Typically there were four people in the band by the time the gig happened, although Martin had stepped in to replace Alan Mason who hadn't been able to make it after all. Alan had also been supposed to play with us at a gig at the Half Moon in Putney (or wherever it was) on Thursday the 14th of January, except that one had fallen through. Anyway, we played but not very well, or at least nothing like as "good" as it had been at the rehearsal. The other acts were Whistling Vic and Rocking Richard - featuring former Dentist Ian who particularly impressed me by puffing away on his pipe whilst drumming; and then Billy Childish and Russ Wilkins who put on a fucking astonishing performance - just two men with guitars, bellowing away and stamping their size fifteens to keep the rhythm. It was amazing.

I'm not sure who is singing on the final track. I suppose it's Carl, although there are mutterings about getting in a guest vocalist just before the track starts. We had talked about getting Andy Fraser of the Martini Slutz and Unlucky Fried Kitten in - which is probably why he's mentioned on the poster - but he reckons he was fitting a carpet at his mum's place that evening, amongst other things. Maybe it was Prez. Maybe it was me.

Tracks:
1 - (introduction)
2 - Hail Fellow Well Met
3 - He Believes 
4 - Beat Me Black & Blue 
5 - I Wanna Be Your Dog
6 - Keep Your Dreams A'Burning
7 - The Insect
8 - A.I.D.X.
9 - Are You My Mother? 
10 - I Wanna Be Your Dog

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Do Easy - Death in a Milan Square (1984) C60

Death in a Milan Square was my live album, as distributed by Anal Probe Tapes - the label set up by Trev and Dap of Opera For Infantry who eventually became the Grey Wolves. I'd released their Hopscotch and Scumworld tapes on my label, and Trev kept asking if I had anything he could release (or at least he mentioned it a couple of times, just in case it sounds like I'm trying to give the impression of my being some kind of hot property). I sent him this cassette of two live performances because it seemed more like the sort of thing he would be into adding to his catalogue. The material was fairly noisy - unusual for me as I spent at least some of 1984 apparently trying to sound like Haircut 100. Trev came up with the title and the cover in reference to my interest in Mussolini and Fascist Italy, which had come from my interest in Futurism and was - seeing as it apparently needs spelling out - largely historical with just a pinch of pleasure taken in upsetting people, and also the fact that I find bald, fat men fairly amusing, especially when they're angry.

The live performances were both held in the afternoon in the sculpture studio at the Mid Warwickshire College of Further Education, Leamington Spa, because I was on the art foundation course at the time. I'd done a couple of performances back in November, 1983, basically just abusing the audience and calling it performance art. This was an attempt to do something similar with a vaguely more musical element, or at least something I might be able to get away with doing in a pub before a paying audience.

The first set was on Thursday the 28th of June, 1984 and featured Jez Diston on guitar, with Graham Pierce and Stephen Webb of the Pre-War Busconductors on fashionable metal percussion. The shouting, electronics, and tapes were all down to me, except I was too pissed to really get anything together - having medicated my pre-gig nerves with a lake of lager down the Star & Garter. I borrowed an amplifier from Jon Hunt of the Ideal Husbands which I think I somehow managed to blow during the proceedings, which was a bit embarrassing, but only for me as I think most of the audience fucked off after the first five minutes.

The second set - performed because the first had failed to resemble the power electronics tour de force I had hoped it might be - was on Monday the 2nd of July, again with Jez on guitar, but with Dave Browning and Jim something-or-other of the Shining pounding the scrap metal. My diary commemorates the occasion thusly:

I spent the morning setting up all the equipment, then got some booze at dinnertime. Jez arrived after that and we had a sort of rehearsal and got drunk. At three we put on another Do Easy live performance, which seemed to go well and was enjoyed by all. We had some great percussion from Dave Browning and the other guy out of the Shining. I borrowed an amplifier and delay pedal from Dave Hirons. I am very pleased with the results and feel a bit randy.

No, I don't know, although there was probably a good reason given that I was eighteen at the time.

Both of these sets were captured on VHS video by Tim Griffiths - who can be heard asking Alan Partridge style questions at the end - and the sound was taken from the video recording. The videos still exist, but aren't that interesting even to me, and I can't be arsed to pay a million dollars to have them converted to a YouTube friendly format. Trev's cover suggests sets comprising individual tracks, following my admittedly vague plan for how each set should progress prior to performance, but it all sort of went out of the window in recording, so each set has been digitised as a single long track - also, the original C60 release chopped off the end of the first set which it then continued on side two, so I've stitched its tail back on, so to speak. The final track is Trev trying to flog other tapes from his label just like that Victor Kiam with his razors, and is included here as a snapshot of the time.

We did it all again on Saturday the 15th of September at Amesbury Sports Centre supporting the Subhumans and Opera For Infantry.

I seem to recall playing more or less the same set, but getting it right. I also seem to recall Jez being there except he isn't mentioned in my diary, which states:

Today I started off depressed for no reason I know of. At one point I was in tears but I still don't know why. Me, Grez and Anders went to Amesbury and met Opera For Infantry and their pals, that is Trev, Dap, Charlie and others. Then we played live at the Sports Centre. We also met the Subhumans and a lot of nice punks, one of whom gave me a go on his joint and said my set wasn't too bad. The Subhumans were good people, especially Trotsky and the guitarist whom I also spoke to, and Dick as well. Opera For Infantry were really good live. It was a really good day.

I'm pretty sure Charlie - whoever he was - handled the guitar for me. I'm not sure what Grez or Anders did but I suspect they were concentrating mainly on their drinking. Unfortunately no tape exists of this performance, so let's just assume it was fucking amazing, unlike the shite you've probably just downloaded. Winky face. Winky face.

Download the tape and cover by clicking on this link.

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Total Big - Rehearsals 5 & 6 (1986) C90

Here we are - yet more Total Big, this time from the point at which we just about had a set and were starting to sound like a band. I'm not really sure what else I can say about this stuff which hasn't already been said in the course of previous blog entries - for which please refer to the index as linked below.

Both of these rehearsals occurred at Hollytree House, Otham, Kent, probably in the kitchen - the first sixteen tracks were on Saturday the 18th of January, and the rest were on Saturday the 8th of February, both in the year of our Lord, 1986. I don't have any corresponding diary entries of particular interest to either of these dates, although on Friday the 17th of January I wrote:

I actually remember what happened today. I paid Charlie some petrol money and him, me and Garreth went over to Chatham to shoot some videos with Glenn. We drove around trying to find a spot, only to find out that the portapak wasn't working. We went to a pub in Gillingham for some food, and Glenn told us he has become a born again Christian, which was a bit of a shock. We went back to Maidstone and we all bought cap guns.

That would be Glenn from Konstruktivists and Charlie who now draws The Walking Dead (and whose band of the time have featured previously on this blog), for those of you with a taste for obscure industrial music-comic book crossover trivia. Talking of industrial music, one channel of Chris's tape deck was on the fritz so there's a couple of tracks which sound a bit like Controlled Bleeding. It wasn't on purpose.

Chris recorded the original tapes, by the way, then edited each one down to a single side of a C90 of just the stuff which sounded like a song, so that's what you have here.

Download the thirty-two tracks by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Are You My Mother?
2 - Rock Sandwich
3 - I'm Not Losing Sleep 
4 - Something Stirs
5 - I'm Not Losing Sleep
6 - Reggae
7 - Simon Says
8 - Wake Up, Sleepyhead
9 - Bob Hope
10 - Ouch!!!
11 - Rock Sandwich
12 - He Writes the Songs
13 - Are You My Mother?
14 - Call It What You Want
15 - Wobblin' and a-Hollerin'
16 - Simon Says
17 - Ouch!!!
18 - He Writes the Songs
19 - Rock Sandwich
20 - Are You My Mother?
21 - Cold Sore Herpes B
22 - Call It What You Want
23 - Untitled I
24 - Untitled II
25 - Louie Louie
26 - Sister Ray
27 - Wham
28 - You Won't Let Me Down
29 - He Writes the Songs
30 - Rock Sandwich
31 - Are You My Mother?
32 - Call It What You Want

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War Drum - War Drum by War Drum (1998) C90

Usual terms and conditions apply as previously stated here, particularly regarding martial shit, the token bit of neofolk karaoke, and Thanksgiving because it's fucking awful and sounds like one of those shitty Ibiza comedown tracks, all hopefully mitigated by potentially bewildering covers of material by Link Wray and All Saints. I was fairly pleased with this one, for the most part. The tracks came out more or less how I hoped, and it was all recorded on a four-track with access to more technology than had been customary for me. So pleased was I that I splashed out on a two-colour cover so as to invoke the national flag of my beloved Mexico. 

By this point I had given up on rock, pop, industrial, and other music made by white people because it had mostly turned to shit. I went through a period of just listening to old classical albums, and by the time it came to this cassette I was getting into rap, garage and R&B, thanks mainly to people at work, and the influence of that stuff can be heard here in places; although Twilight Years owes its existence to my encountering the first seven studio albums by Iron Maiden in a junk shop on Lordship Lane for the same number of quids and all in good nick.

Andy of the Apostles, Academy 23, and UNIT handles the vocals on Flaying of Men, and whilst we're here, America, Awake! was my adaptation and repurposing of Academy 23's Europe, Awake! to hopefully less dubious seeming ends given that the perspective is changed from that of a white European to a Native American. I wasn't a Native American at the time, and I'm still not one now, but my intentions were noble.

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

Tracks:
1 - One Handed Tormentor
2 - Protomammal
3 - Plains Dweller
4 - Crusader
5 - Nanautzin
6 - Twilight Years
7 - Soul Rebel No. 1
8 - Blood Garage
9 - His Day Sign Was Fortified
10 - Take Everything
11 - Rollergirl
12 - Ce Quiahuitl
13 - Sixth Extinction
14 - Scapegoat
15 - Java Sunday
16 - Thanksgiving
17 - Fat Back
18 - My War Drum
19 - Flaying of Men
20 - Remembrance Day
21 - America, Awake!
22 - Love for the World
23 - Yei Mazatl Quecholli
24 - War of Nerves

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