v/a - Carnage in a Country Garden (1986) C90

Assuming they have no objections, at some point I'm going to be digitising and sharing some of the stuff I have by Opera for Infantry who became better known as the Grey Wolves in more recent years. As some of you may be aware, the Grey Wolves have been subject to a certain degree of criticism for their use of extreme right wing imagery, with some of this criticism suggesting that the Grey Wolves might even be sympathetic towards the politics of those whose flags they once slapped all over their tape covers. The thing is, I've known them on and off by various degrees of separation for about three decades now, and I still have a stack of letters from Trev of the group from when we used to write to each other back in the day, and with this in mind I respectfully suggest that whilst one might legitimately criticise their possibly irresponsible use of scary pictures, the idea that they could be genuine Nazis, closeted or otherwise, is complete bollocks; but it's really an argument for another time. I always viewed Opera for Infantry as more or less Crass with a synth and a fuzz pedal instead of guitars and drums, at least in terms of where their politics lay, and it really isn't hard to find material to support this if you can be arsed to look, not least all of those early compilations on their Anal Probe label, noisy but well-rooted in anarchopunk and squat culture and usually released as a benefit for some worthy cause or another, and no - we really aren't talking about anything comparable to how Death in June used to play at Rock Against Racism events...

Anyway, to get to the point, this was Anal Probe's third, fourth or maybe even fifth compilation cassette, a noisy affair as you might expect, but with a lot of variety too. I've written about Enhoenta Bodlar, Asepisis, and Do Easy - which was me - elsewhere on this blog with downloads which can be found via the index at the foot of this entry, and I wrote about Human Trapped Rhythms here, and as for the rest: Final was the bloke from Godflesh, and I think Chris Low who drummed for the Apostles was in Political Asylum, and you're probably as well-equipped to find out about the others as I am, should you feel you need to know. A few of this bunch turned up on other compilations, but they remain mostly just names to me.

As Do Easy, I played a live gig in support to Opera for Infantry and the Subhumans in Amesbury back in September 1984, so that's when I met Trev and Dap. After the gig we went back to their place - which I vaguely remember as being full of punk rockers - and I happened to have the tape of my tracks for this compilation on me, so Trev made a copy there and then on his ghetto blaster. I noticed the levels were whacked right up on the machine, and my bargain bin Matt Johnson impersonation was transformed into something off the first SPK album as it was being copied, but I was too polite, or possibly terrified, to say anything. Anyway, if anyone cares enough, slightly clearer versions of the Do Easy tracks appeared on one of the Purifier tapes. Of course, that was 1984 and this came out in 1986 according to Discogs, which leaves a bit of an odd gap, so either my memory is wrong or some Discogs subscriber has messed up on the dating.

Anyway, four-hundred years later, this doesn't sound anything like so noisy as I remember it being, and it's also nice that it's not just twenty-seven tracks of different blokes screaming that they're going to do you up the bum; yes, quite a pleasing collection, I'd say.

Download these twenty-seven tracks, cover and inserts by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Enhoenta Bodlar - Antichrist ne Telleth
2 - Der Verboten - Walking
3 - Vox Populi! - White Man in Africa
4 - Human Trapped Rhythms - Part of the Same
5 - Final - Belief
6 - Political Asylum - Symptom
7 - Asepisis - The Presence
8 - En Halvkokt I Folie - Men Pensionarer
9 - Kosa - Watt Tem
10 - Do Easy - In the Moral Hit Parade
11 - Nun - Vermilion Sands (extract)
12 - Kallous Boys - Sovereign
13 - Opera for Infantry - Hate Machine
14 - Der Verboten - Your Cancer My Sort
15 - Kosa - No Trouble
16 - En Halvkokt I Folie - Invitation to the Blues
17 - Vox Populi! - Mind
18 - Political Asylum - A Day in the Life
19 - Kallous Boys - Tolerance
20 - Do Easy - Mussolini and a Plate of Gruts
21 - Der Verboten - Slem Jem
22 - Kosa - Pole Sud
23 - Nun - The Disaster Area (extract)
24 - Vaccine Damaged Children - Last Train to Auschwitz
25 - En Halvkokt I Folie - Senator Bizarre
26 - Human Trapped Rhythms - Suck Mud
27 - Kallous Boys - Elizabeth

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Sat Next to the Radio, One Finger on the Pause Button (1980) C120

This was compiled in 2016, but all of the material dates from 1980, and it doesn't actually exist as a C120 but that's how long it would be if it did, so Merry Christmas.

I got my first mono portable tape recorder as a teenager, roughly coinciding with my developing an obsession with music. I bought a five-pin DIN lead and taped stuff from medium wave radio, particularly the interviews featured on Tommy Vance's Rock On Saturday show on Radio 1, usually conducted by David Hepworth, Phil Sutcliffe, and others whose names I can't remember; and being an obsessive type, of course I still have all of these tapes and this is the first six months or so converted to digital format on the grounds that it will probably be of interest to someone somewhere, and some of it is even still of interest to me.

You can probably work out who these people are or were if you retain any interest in their music, although some of this lot won't make a great deal of sense if you don't. The quality isn't amazing but it's listenable, and I've removed most of the songs played during the interviews. If you really need to hear Kings of the Wild Frontier, I'm sure you can find yourself something better than a crackly mono MP3 with someone talking over the introduction.

Points of potential interest: 1) Richard Jobson really comes across as a bit of a Charlie, doesn't he? 2) Wouldn't have bothered including the Lennon thing given that he makes no actual appearance, but it makes for pretty weird listening considering how things turned out. 3) Interesting to note that Jello Biafra was mesmerisingly entertaining even back then, and also that 4) Bono was always like that, even when he was just a kitten. 5) Thrill as Malcolm McLaren courageously defends the sort of pictures Jimmy Savile liked to look at whilst trying not to sound like the sleazy failed art student he always was, the horrible auld tit-rifle. I particularly enjoy his amusing pronunciation of the word cassettes, delivered almost as though he's an old, old man trying hard to be down with the kids and getting it all wrong. What a fucking rotter. 6) That isn't a picture of the actual tape recorder on which all this stuff was taped, but it's the same model. I used to love that thing.

Enjoy.

Seasons Greetings.

Happy Hanukah.

Merry Christmas.

Etc. 

Download all nineteen tracks by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Max Splodge & Baby Greensleeves 16/8/80
2 - Spizz 16/8/80
3 - Kevin Rowland 26/7/80
4 - Annabella Lwin & Malcolm McLaren 2/8/80
5 - Ian Dury & Wilko Johnson 9/8/80
6 - Dave Wakeling 23/8/80
7 - Adam Ant 23/8/80
8 - Dave Ruffy & Paul Fox 23/8/80
9 - Lemmy 30/8/80
10 - Suggs & Chas Smash 27/9/80
11 - Richard Jobson 27/9/80
12 - David Hepworth on John Lennon's comeback 29/9/80
13 - Jello Biafra 27/9/80
14 - Sting 4/10/80
15 - Edward Tudor-Pole 4/10/80
16 - Rat Scabies 25/10/80
17 - Bono & the Edge 4/10/80
18 - Mel Smith & Pamela Stephenson 15/11/80
19 - Malcolm McLaren 15/11/80
 

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