His-Create-He - The Prison (1982) C20

I don't know anything about this lot. Larry Peterson sent me their demo when I was putting the first Do Easy compilation tape together. I really liked The Prison so I included it on the tape, assuming they would eventually get around to replying to my letters, which they didn't. Little did I realise that the track, presumably the same track, had already appeared on a compilation album called Sing As We Go, released the year before. Subsequent research has unearthed the fact of their having turned into something called Bzu-zu and contributed to a record called Pulsebeat, as described by this bloke. The above picture is actually of Bzu-zu taken from Discogs, which is all I could find.

There was originally a photocopied cover to the tape with the band name - which was definitely hyphenated - spelled out in old English script, and The Prison was titled as I've given it here, not as given on Sing As We Go, for what it may be worth; but it's now lost, I'm afraid. What information I managed to save is that the first three tracks were live at the Clarendon, Hammersmith on 8th of November, 1982; and The Prison was recorded at Golddust Studios, Sidcup on the 6th and 10th of November, 1982, and engineered by Mark of some band called Legend...

Fuck me.

Okay. I've just looked up Golddust Studios and it's the place I used to go to get all my War Drum tapes duplicated around the end of the nineties, and I remember the aforementioned Mark fairly well as he was a good laugh and his rates were very reasonable. What a small fucking world it is. Jesus.

Anyway, I need to have a bit of a sit down, so I'll leave you with His-Create-He who failed to set the world on fire but nevertheless managed a decent demo tape, and were patently of the era of Conflict, New Model Army, the Danse Society and the like.

Just this week I was listening to an old Princess Superstar CD when I realised that the music on one track had been done by a bloke to whom I used to deliver mail when I was a postman in SE London - in fact, I used to deliver his mail using the same Royal Mail bike on which I regularly cycled over to Bromley to get my tapes copied by the bloke who produced the track I used on a compilation tape back in the eighties. It's all connected.

What a week it has been.

Download the tape by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - I Would
2 - Demon Dance
3 - Witchfinder General
4 - The Prison (that Jack Built)
 
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Scram Ju Ju - February 1984 (1984) C30

Firstly, just to get it out of the way, I found the above photograph on Mark Osbourne's excellent this is then, a photographic history of the Coventry music scene, so it's reproduced here with his kind permission. I didn't actually have any interesting images to accompany this week's tape and so image searched Dave Wankling, himself being Scram Ju Ju, only to discover he's the late Dave Wankling which is frankly a bit upsetting. I seem to recall Alan Rider mentioning that he'd seen the aforementioned Dave a while back (decades I think) and he hadn't been in a good way, therefore balls.

Anyway, Scram Ju Ju are probably remembered as the "normal band" on Third Mind's Rising from the Red Sand compilation (this was Dave's own sardonic description), but you may also recall Mr. Wankling from Urge, featuring the legendary Kevin Harrison, who had a couple of singles out, and of course as co-writer of Kevin's Ink Man - an absolute fucking corker from the Fly EP which you need to own if you don't already have it (downloadable from here but there's a vinyl version knocking around if you have a look). Anyway, I wrote to Dave when I was putting together the Moraals compilation, and we struck up a correspondence, and he sent me this tape. I think he was touched due to my apparently being the first person to bother to write to him having heard his track on Red Sand. So much for all those open-minded industrial weirdies. Maybe he should have knocked out a couple of Manson covers.

Big Beyond was the Red Sand track by the way. I copied it onto the end of the tape Dave sent because I'm a nerd, so I figured I may as well include it here and save you the million quid you would have spent on a Red Sand reissue.

As you will hear, Dave was a serious instrumental talent, and one can only wonder what else he might have done had this story had a happier ending.

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

Tracks:
1 - After All
2 - Ruled by the Heart
3 - Logic in Love
4 - Swelling
5 - It's a Hymn
6 - Big Beyond
 
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Orient Cycles - Nerves (1981) C10

This one will make sense mostly to those of a particular vintage living in or around Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire back at the start of the eighties, and may seem a little underwhelming to everyone else, so you have been warned. The Orient Cycles were our local mod band and featured Julian Caddy - or Cloppo as we knew him, for reasons I never fully understood - Huw James, and Chris Beer on the skins. I never saw them, but only knew them by repute, which admittedly wasn't very good and mainly consisted of one of the bigger kids referring to them as the Urine Cycles. Anyway, my little gang of hairy pals enjoyed a brief spell of hanging out with Cloppo down Shipston sportsfield one summer. He was older than us and very, very funny, plus being in a band automatically earned our admiration. I think this tape came from my friend Graham's older brother, Martin (of the Abstracts) - a rehearsal tape of a presumed Orient Cycles original, plus jamming based on Secret Affair's I'm Not Free (But I'm Cheap). I told you it wouldn't make much sense unless you already knew who they were.

The Dragon was of course the Green Dragon in Stratford-upon-Avon, recently converted into desirable luxury lifestyle units suitable for fucking wankers with neither a conscience nor a sense of history. I can't remember where I found the poster, but it may have been Jez Randall (also of the Abstracts) on facebook. Anyway, it was a photo taken on someone's phone so I did what I could to tidy it up a bit. I suspect it may have been the work of Cloppo as it seems consistent with what I can recall of his sense of humour.

Download both tracks and a scan of the poster by clicking on this link.

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Headmen - 1986 Demo Tape (1986) C30

Here's some more material excavated from the tapes to which they were copied, and reconstructed much like one of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. The Headmen sent me the first six tracks inviting me to pick something for the third Do Easy compilation tape - which never happened, in case you were wondering. I think I was going to use Resolution, so the bloke did a new mix and sent it to me along with something else he'd been working on, so those are the last two tracks here. He also sent the above page for the proposed booklet which would accompany the tape, but obviously didn't in the end.

...and that's about as much as I know. I didn't keep the bloke's letters (hard to believe but I don't actually hang onto everything) although I have a vague impression of his name being Richard Smith, or Richard something, or maybe John Smith, or somebody or other Smith, and possibly from Reading... maybe. There were tracks by the Headmen on a couple of volumes of Mindscan Tapes' UK Electronics series which I assume would have been the same operation, so maybe Rob Maycock would have an idea, assuming he's out there somewhere.

Shame I don't know more because I was quite impressed with how expensive this material sounded - far from the usual tapes of people's lawnmowers I was getting sent at the time. It's something in the general vicinity of Nagamatzu or early Attrition if you need further inducement.

Download the octet of tracks plus cover by clicking your rodent on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Resolution
2 - Snake Eyed
3 - The Magus
4 - Waiting
5 - City 7
6 - Glass
7 - Resolution (version)
8 - Untitled
 
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Konstruktivists - 1983 Home Recordings (1983) C30

There was a time when I had a whole stack of tapes with just two or three tracks on them, these being things people had sent me, usually for inclusion on some compilation or other. Then at some point during the nineties, I filled up a few of these tapes (which were mostly blank excepting two or three tracks of the type described) with the two or three tracks from other mostly empty cassettes so as to have all of that stuff in one place, because I like things to be nice and tidy. This week, for the sake of a change of pace I've digitised a couple of the resulting C90s with the plan to release them back into the wild in their original form just as nature intended (except for these being downloads rather than physical tapes, obviously), so here we go...

This one was Glenn of Konstruktivists filling up one side of a C60 for tracks I might use on the first Do Easy compilation, and I should probably also mention that I further milked the same Kow a couple of years later when it came to putting together this one. Anyway, as the tape Glenn sent me was one which I filled with other people's stuff on side two, this was my master and is hence probably marginally better quality than is the same material as it appeared on the Do Easy tapes. I've a feeling I may also have nicked one of the bass patterns for Dada X, while we're here.

Glenn sent this just before Black December, the third Konstruktivists album, was issued by Third Mind and you may recognise a couple of the Eastern Vein demos as formative versions of material which turned up on that album - I can't be arsed to check which ones, and I've a feeling that the other two may therefore be tracks which were never expanded upon. I vaguely remember Glenn telling me that at the time of recording this material, he usually worked on his music at home on a four-track portastudio, then transferred the portastudio tapes to eight or possibly sixteen track at IPS and pumped them up into the versions we've heard on the records. I've also included a scan of the letter Glenn wrote when he sent me this tape in the download in case it's of any interest.

Download the tape, cover and intimate personal correspondence by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Mansonik 2 (version)
2 - Eastern Vein I
3 - Eastern Vein II
4 - Eastern Vein III
5 - Eastern Vein IV
6 - Bass Pattern I
7 - Bass Pattern II
 

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