Envy - 1987 Demo (1987) C20

I'm quite excited about this one as I thought it was beyond hope, having already tried and failed to digitise the thing as I explained here. But, having recently discovered that the other player on my double cassette deck can just about cope with tapes which have otherwise succumbed to wow and flutter, here we are. It still sounds a little wobbly in places, but I'd say it's listenable, and at least it no longer sounds like Bourbonese Qualk outtakes. There's a programme called Capstan, I think, which one can download and use to eliminate wow and flutter, but I don't have it. If anyone wants to send me a couple of hundred dollars so I can buy the thing, that would be great.

 

I've had my tape deck repaired and a new motor installed since writing the above and it turns out the Envy tape now plays fine, so I've redigitised it and replaced the drunk versions with what you should have heard first time - link same as before.

 

Anyway, this was, on reflection, possibly my favourite line-up of this band (including the one which had me as a member) and these are fucking great songs, at least providing you like that sort of thing, which I did, or still do in the case of this tape. I've a feeling Paul was pulling towards being the Swans of Chatham (hence being named after one of the seven deadly sins, just like Greed) while Rajun and Prez were pulling in what was almost the opposite direction, which is why it worked so well, in my opinion. Someone should track down the master of this and stick it out as a 12" - fucking brilliant stuff.

Download the quintet of ditties and associate visual component by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - A Suicide
2 - Killing Man
3 - Prove Yourself
4 - Fear of the Dark
5 - Just For You


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SWANC - Mouldy Roll (1992) C90

Here's another one which fell off the back of the Pumf catalogue. Older boys and girls will recall Neil Campbell from ESP Kinetic and from er... being Neil Campbell, accounting for the NC of the acronym. The SW is Stewart Walden who was involved with Smell & Quim amongst other things. I looked him up on Discogs to see if he'd been a member of Bruce Hornsby & the Range or anyone else you will have heard of, and discovered that I actually know the guy on facebook under a different name and never realised; although to be fair this isn't even the first time this has happened. Come to think of it, the previous bloke turned out to have been in Smell & Quim too, which suggest there's a bit of a pattern there.

 

Anyway, apparently this was their third album. As you will hear, it belongs to the general pissing about with a tape recorder genre, in this case yielding a ton of short, occasionally tuneful blasts of absurdity, of which I feel Morons is, in particular, a masterpiece of its kind. As a whole, the thing reminds me of the Residents' Commercial Album, albeit vaguely. Mr. Walden has informed me that the live bonus tracks were actually Stan's idea - they appear in two selections at the end of each side on the cassette, but this sounded untidy to me so I've shuffled them all together to the end of the thing (tracks 40-52).

 

Enjoy.

Download all fifty-fucking-two tracks and cover by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - A Song for Stan
2 - (song)
3 - Good Old Casio
4 - The Park
5 - Mankin' Mr. Big Tits
6 - Fankle
7 - The Ballad of Sticky Foster
8 - Teenage Lobotomy
9 - Waiting for Little Red Riding Hood
10 - Middle Eight
11 - Git
12 - Something of Love
13 - Middle Eight
14 - Rub Down Transfer Song
15 - How to Tell Kids About Pee-Wee
16 - When I Fell in Love
17 - Ten Stewart Walden Lookalikes
18 - Windmill in Old Amsterdam
19 - Me 163 Komet
20 - Hit the People Who Can't Hit Back
21 - Skateboard Song
22 - Caspar the Friendly Ghost
23 - Mouldy Roll
24 - Morons
25 - Twenty-Twenty
26 - Prophet of the Age of Hourous
27 - Screaming Trouble
28 - Backpack
29 - Fit a Little Song
30 - Locked Groove
31 - I'm Glad
32 - Dr. Hungry Casio
33 - Woman in Love
34 - Working Men's Feet
35 - Hatstand Man
36 - Turnip Tulip
37 - Windowsill
38 - Ogle Drive
39 - Don't Pass Me By
40 - SWANC
41 - Feelin' Groovy
42 - Sound of Silence
43 - Morons
44 - Mmmorning
45 - Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue
46 - Lenty!
47 - Home on the Range
48 - Got It Together Again
49 - Caspar the Friendly Ghost
50 - Here's What to Do...
51 - Mom, I Gave the Cat Some Acid
52 - Motorbike Song

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