Stuff The Neighbours Play It Loud (1984) 7"

It's not a tape, but same difference. Larry put this out towards the end of Cause for Concern, it being his swansong excepting a couple of reissues as vinyl albums. It came in an A4 plastic bag with a stack of loose sheets of photocopied artwork from the artists, so I've scanned that and it's all included here. I could have spent hours getting rid of the occasional pop or click but I couldn't be arsed, and you're getting the fucker for free anyway. You edit the sound files if you care that much. Or maybe your mom could edit them.

Band of Holy Joy shouldn't really require much of an introduction, and nor should We Be Echo (and for what it's worth I suspect Kevin probably designed the cover or at least the front page, as seen above). The Unkommuniti eventually turned into Stereolab, as you know. I don't know nuffink about the other three bands, and Larry never mentioned them in any of his letters, and nor did they appear on any other CFC tapes from what I can tell. My guess is that at least one of them made it onto the EP by virtue of stumping up some money for pressing as they don't quite sound like Larry's usual fare. That said, there's nothing wrong with them either, and the Nightmare track is pretty great. The other two sound like the Police and Hawkwind respectively, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I used to have about thirty copies of this thing but, having failed to shift any through the mail - having added them to the Runciter Corporation catalogue - I ended up giving them all away to Martin Pike of Stereolab and Duophonic, explaining 'Tim used to be in one of these bands so I figured you could give them away to Stereolab fans or something.' I was able to do this because, by fucking stupid coincidence, I was not only his regular postman at the time, but we lived in the same street - he was about ten doors down the hill from me. I got the impression he thought I was a bit weird, so I don't know what he did with the records, but I sort of wish I'd hung onto them and flogged them on eBay. Never mind.

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

Tracks:
1 - Band of Holy Joy - Snow White
2 - We Be Echo - Housewive's Choice
3 - Some Other Year - Nice and Safe
4 - Psy - Sickle and the Hourglass
5 - Nightmare - Mask (of Normality)
6 - Unkommuniti - Yog Sothoth
 
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A Couple of Andy Fraser Demos

To start at the end, there's Unlucky Fried Kitten whom I wrote about here. Rage Against Florence + the Machine can be acquired for a mere fiver here, and I think the first album, which is similarly great, can be had for the same price from the same blog, except I can't find the Paypal button so you may have to root around for a bit, or just ask Andy or something. Unlucky Fried Kitten is mostly Andy Fraser, occasionally known as Andy Export, of Maidstone, Kent - not to be confused with the late Man's Hate bloke (who has also turned up on this blog). Prior to Unlucky Fried Kitten there have been about a million other names under which he's bashed the triangle, and here are two.

 

I don't even remember how I came by these tapes. I've a feeling they were given to some student union bloke at Maidstone College of Art in the hope of getting a gig, and were eventually passed on to me as the sort of thing I might like, except I finished at Maidstone Art College in 1987 and at least one of these didn't happen until 1988, so as I say I don't know how they found their way onto my shelves. Also, I'd already seen Andy singing with the Martini Slutz by this point and immediately recognised Revenge and Underground Worker as tracks they had played live (Churchill's in Chatham, I think)...

 

Also, both tapes were single sided, missing the tracks listed as being on side two on the covers, so I don't know what went on there either.

 

What do I actually know?

 

Trooping of the Squalor seems to have been a very early version of what became the title track of www.loserville.com, and God, I wish there had been a tape of the Martini Slutz, but never mind - these are still pretty great, in my view.

Download the Death in Venice tape and cover by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Pop Group
2 - Lazy Love
 

...and the Basement Mania tape here.

Tracks:
1 - Revenge
2 - Weather Permitting
3 - Trooping of the Squalor   
4 - Underground Worker
 

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Pandemic - Third Spacing (1998) C90

Viewers born during the late 1500s may recall Steve Trodd from this Soul Providers tape, along with the two which followed soon after (which should be easy enough to find on this blog unless you're a simpleton). Anyway, this was his own stuff recorded as Pandemic with an assortment of gas-powered synths and, so far as I recall, not much else in the way of equipment. Nevertheless, I've always found it a thoroughly convincing effort and powerfully atmospheric - like a much scarier Cluster or even how Lustmord would sound if any of the reviews reflected what his music actually sounded like. 'Wack up the volume and just feel those textures,' as was I believe Jamie Oliver's verdict, and quite right too.

Also included is my own efforts at remixing one of Steve's tracks, specifically one which was called Harm at the time, but since appears to have turned into something else. With hindsight, I'm not sure I really added anything because most of this stuff sounded great as it was.

Interested parties might also like to pop over to Steve's Soundcloud page.

Download the eight tracks and inlay card by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Crashed and Bled Out
2 - Transmission
3 - Host
4 - Marburg
5 - Decon
6 - Virus
7 - Sentinel-Animal
8 - Harm [rmx]

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Regular - Psychedelic, Dub, Soul Hits, Loops and Sketches (2002) C90

This week I'm FFWDing to my most recent tape by John Jasper, relatively speaking, having noticed that a couple of those between this and the last one I shared seem to be mixes of stuff by John alongside albums by Singers & Players, and I was in a hurry to mow the lawn so I plugged in the computer and set up a tape which looked like it was all John, judging by the cover. As mentioned in previous posts, I have sometimes found it difficult to tell which tapes denoted as being by the Regulars are actually the work of the same and which are John cheekily taping an entire Matt Monro album and passing it off as his own work, and you will notice that the material on this one seems to be of suspiciously high quality - but fuck it, frankly I'm past caring. Whoever recorded this stuff, it's a masterpiece. Anyway, I vaguely recall John telling me he had bought a truly luxurious sampling thingie when he gave me this tape, so I assume these to be the fruits of the same.

 

To recap for anyone who wants to know but is too stupid to work out how one might go about referring to previous blog entries detailing the work of John Jasper, I met John in Chatham about 1987 and we lost touch when I moved a couple of years later, since which our respective orbits have only seldom resulted in our temporarily occupying the same boozer. This one dates from 2002, as you may have noticed. John was staying with his mum in Peckham prior to, if memory serves, moving to Northampton, or north-somewhere. We met for a pint in the pub at 90, Crystal Palace Road back when it actually was a fucking pub. I can't remember what it was called, but Geoff and Don always used to drink in there. Now it's called the Actress, serves pizzas, and Geoff is no longer with us. What a fucking world.

Anyway, that's where I last saw John. He gave me this tape and then once again vanished off the face of the earth, much like the town in Brigadoon. Actually he briefly resurfaced a few years later with a series of truly peculiar video compositions posted on YouTube. One of them was an ultra-rare Sex Pistols song called Romany Arse, which was pretty damn great, but which then vanished again along with its mysterious patron.

Just download the tape and give it a listen. It will make a lot more sense than any of this.

Download all thirty-six tracks and cover by clicking on this link.

Once again there seem to be a lot more tracks on the tape than are listed on the cover, so make of that what you will.

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