Six by the Sputniks (1986) 10"

I intended to share this one a while ago seeing as I'd digitised it and even edited out all of the pops and clicks, but Tim of the Sputniks never replied to my request asking whether it would be okay to give away his work for free. I actually don't think he would have had a problem but suspect he never saw the message, being an oldie like myself, but one less able to navigate all the convolutions of this new-fangled facebook shite - and I didn't want to ask again in case he had seen the message but had been too angry to formulate a response.

Who the hell am I talking about, you may ask. Well, he was my pal and he recently bought the farm, which is upsetting, and I already wrote about him at length here.

For someone who was so busy, musically speaking, it still seems weird that Tim should have left such a scant recorded presence - this 10", a few tracks on the Hangman compilations, and I expect there are still tapes of Johnny Gash and others in a box in someone's attic which will probably remain there, which is a real shame; so that's why I'm sharing this now that it's gone posthumous, in memorial to a guy who deserves to be remembered better than he probably will be. If you want a physical copy, there's still a couple on Discogs last time I looked.

 

Thanks a fucking bunch, 2020, you utter fucking cunt.

 

Rest in peace, Tim, old buddy.

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

Tracks:
1 - Rawhide
2 - Let's Talk About Living
3 - Besame Mucho
4 - Bumble Beat
5 - Danny
6 - A Swingin' Safari

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Total Big - Rehearsals 7 & 8 (1986) C60

Here's some more Total Big, rehearsals in the kitchen of Hollytree House in the village of Otham in Kent, first fourteen tracks from the 15th of February, 1986 and the rest a couple of weeks later on the 1st of March. This is the fourth Total Big cassette I've slapped up on this blog, and if you think the first three were fucking amazing (a scenario I imagine might be facilitated by it being the first music you've ever heard in the event of your having been raised by hogs on a desert island) then you're in luck because this is more of the same. Total Big were myself playing my trusty Teisco guitar, Chris on drums, and Carl on vocals, which I mention because I can't remember what I said about the band in previous entries and can't be arsed to check. This one sounds quite garagey to me, what with the drums pounding away louder than the guitar, although it may be just because I'm presently reading a book about music in the Medway towns, Billy Childish and all that - albeit a book about music in the Medway towns so violently definitive that it mentions Tim Webster a grand total of once in the first three-hundred pages and yet has already mentioned fucking Dodgy (who were shit and don't actually come from or have any association with Medway) five or six times for the sake of comparison.

Total Big's pounding rhythms owe much to the Crucial Trifles and Oasis and they were kind of like the Kaiser Chiefs of their day blah blah blah Jo Whiley blah blah Chatham dockyard blah blah rich musical heritage rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb...

Download the twenty-one tracks and nothing else by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Louie Louie
2 - Sister Ray
3 - Louie Louie
4 - He Writes the Songs
5 - Rock Sandwich
6 - Are You My Mother?
7 - Call It What You Want
8 - Wham
9 - Cold Sore Herpes B
10 - Louie Louie
11 - Sister Ray
12 - Keep Your Dreams A'Burnin'
13 - Hail Fellow Well Met
14 - Twist, Hold It Back!
15 - Louie Louie
16 - Sister Ray
17 - Ouch!!!
18 - He Writes the Songs
19 - Rock Sandwich
20 - Are You My Mother?
21 - Keep Your Dreams A'Burnin'


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