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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Konstruktivists - Jihad-e-Sazendegi Demos (1988) C60

As a few of you may have surmised, I'm coming to the end of my five-ish year mission to digitise my entire tape collection, meaning I've now digitised all of the stuff which leaps out at me as requiring digitisation, leaving just 1) things which will only make sense to me and which I'm not really bothered about listening to, stuff taped from the radio and the like, 2) things which I would digitise and share except I still know the people who recorded them fairly well and haven't yet summoned up the energy to ask whether it's okay to give their shit away to strangers for free because I'm afraid that either they'll say no, or they'll say yes but I'll have to explain what the internet is, 3) collections of tapes by either factor X, Academy 23, or Konstruktivists which I've barely tackled. The reason I've barely tackled the Konstruktivists material is because I have forty-four tapes of stuff Glenn passed on to me and it can be quite a job working out what is what, and what has already seen the light of day in one form or another.

Anyway, no promises, but I think this stuff should be new to at least a couple of you, and hopefully it hasn't already appeared on some CD, or even on a previous download shared through this blog. The cover of Black December doesn't really have anything specific to do with this material, except I thought you might like to see it in colour.

Okay. 1988 is a guess but I think this dates from around then, give or take a year. Konstruktivists had released Glennascaul through Nigel's Sterile Records, recording Ikon during the same sessions and that was supposed to be the next record, a twelve inch single, except it never happened. Ikon was also the first studio track with Joe Ahmed in the group. Glenn then went through a couple of years of domestic difficulties, mainly just the practicalities of holding down a job, getting married, having a kid, finding places to live, and the usual stuff. Jihad-e-Sazendegi (meaning Crusade for Construction) was to be the fifth album and bits and pieces had been recorded at Joe's place in Harlow, Essex, and they sounded fucking amazing too; but somehow it never quite came together what with life getting in the way and everything, and eventually I guess the album was forgotten.

This is my tape of what was recorded, except I'm not absolutely sure of the details. I've a feeling some of these titles may be ones I came up with for the sake of writing something on the inlay card, and although I'm fairly certain the first seven tracks were recorded with Joe for the proposed album, there may be some wiggle room, and the second half of the tape sounds like Glenn solo to me, so is quite possibly something else entirely. Anyway, it's good stuff, so hopefully you'll get a kick out of listening to it.

Download the fourteen tracks by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Militaristik
2 - Islam
3 - East of Eden
4 - First Light
5 - Here it Comes
6 - Jihad
7 - Midnight Leather
8 - Cruising My Decade
9 - Celebration
10 - Last Dawn
11 - New Direction
12 - Fear Teachers
13 - Fourth International
14 - Tracking
 
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Regular - Mule City (1992) C90

You may recall the work of John Jasper from Regulation Issue and this other tape. Here's a third one. I can't absolutely swear that these tracks didn't appear in some version on either of the other two tapes I've shared. In fact I can't even guarantee that this is exclusively a tape of John's work given his bewildering form for throwing the occasional piece of thievery into the mix - like the tape which turned out to be Keith LeBlanc's Major Malfunction, which I actually recognised as I'd already taped bits of it from Peel; plus I have a more recent tape which is obviously the first Leftfield album, but who fucking knows? The man was a mystery.

 

Anyway, I'm pretty sure this is all John, excepting a few samples you'll doubtless recognise. When editing I incremented the tracks, giving each one its title according to what John had written on the inlay card, then noticed that it's actually pretty hard to determine what counts as a full track on this tape, plus there are many more discreet pieces of music here than there are titles, so I gave up and assigned everything a number. The title Mule City comes from the first track according to the inlay card, which I've repurposed because it sounds better than John 1992. The scanned inlay card comes with the download so if you want to sit there and go through them, deciding which title refers to what, then please do. I seem to be credited on this tape too, as you may notice, although I have no memory of having been involved in any of these. Of course, maybe it was something from one of those many late nights fucking about with the portastudio at his house in Chatham. I have no idea. While we're here, I don't know who Jeff Smith was or recall any stage during which John had a drummer, but John Page was definitely a real person. I met him and thought he was a bit of a prick. His opening line was how he didn't realise anyone was still wearing shirts with button down collars. I was wearing a shirt with a button down collar at the time so it struck me as a knob-esque remark.

 

Anyway, if you a) enjoyed the other two, or b) have any taste whatsoever, you should also enjoy this one on account of it being fucking fantastic.

 

Madness, genius, fine lines etc.

Download the tape and cover by clicking on this link.

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Family of Noise - Rough Versions (1996) C60

Bit of a dud this week, I'm afraid, but no-one's forcing you to listen to this shit and maybe it will sound as amazing to you in 2019 as it apparently did to me in 1996.

Yes, 1996: I'd just left Academy 23 (or possibly UNIT - can't remember what we were called at the time) because learning all those progressive rock symphonies was beginning to feel a bit too much like homework and I was getting tired of playing other people's songs, not least because I thought mine were better. I was going through a bit of a pre-mid-life crisis crisis and trying to reinvent myself as something less ridiculous, and thusly decided there was no good reason why cunts shouldn't be learning to play my fucking songs for a change. The clock was ticking, so I placed an advert in Melody Maker calling out for musicians with the intention of Family of Noise becoming something which played gigs and got paid. I got a few replies, more than I expected, and made up a demo tape to send out to the authors of those responses which hadn't obviously been prank calls. I was going to reinvent myself as some sort of hybrid of Courtney Love and Marc Almond and these were to be the songs you will be playing, I told my potential minions, should you be good enough to join my amazing band.

The first guy was an Elton John style keyboardist and an American then living next door to Emma Thompson. He said my tape reminded him of Fad Gadget, which seemed fair enough, and he was probably the gayest man I've ever met. He was also massively talented and way out of my league, so I suspect had replied more for the sake of making friends with other weirdos in a foreign country.

The second guy was about fifteen and lived in Chatham with an older, seemingly long-suffering girlfriend. He raved about Hummingbird and then strummed and sang one of his own songs, proposing we might add it to the set. It was called Morphine and suggested not so much that he'd had experience of the drug, but that he listened to a lot of Nirvana records. I reversed from the flat giving a series of positive McCartney-esque thumbs aloft signals, got back to London, then phoned the poor cunt and told him I'd changed my mind.

Finally I met Gareth who, so it turned out, lived around the corner from me. He was already in a band, specifically a popular Queen covers band as their John Deacon, and I don't think he'd been particularly impressed by my tape, but something I'd said had apparently given me away as a fellow Doctor Who fan (this was before it came back to the screen and was shit in 2005), so he got in touch mainly out of curiosity, and we never formed a band but have been pals ever since.

The universe was trying to tell me something, and that was to not bother forming a band. With hindsight I realise that the universe was probably right. While these tracks aren't entirely without their qualities, I couldn't really sing and the lyrics of which I was once so proud are unfortunately spattered with all sorts of faintly ludicrous references intended to make it sound a bit edgy and dangerous, which it actually wasn't.

The first four were from New Golden Age; I don't think My Remaining Eye ever appeared on anything; Hummingbird and The Girl Who Has Everything were eventually recycled as War Drum tracks; New Breed became UNIT's This Hour's Mine, which is a bit of a sore point; Cenotaph, my token dalliance with martial industrial bollocks, turned up on some UNIT tape I haven't got around to digitising (and probably won't bother); and Shit Factory (which was massively influenced by Third Door from the Left and was recorded in Lewisham with the involvement of the late Andrew Cox of Pump and MFH) ended up on War Drum's Year One tape which I haven't bothered digitising as most of the tracks were from other tapes. Also, the original master is a C54 which truncated the end of Shit Factory. As this tape is a compilation, and not so much a straight digitisation as a reconstruction from the original source tapes, there didn't seem to be much point in truncating the last track for the sake of authenticity, so it's the full version.

Download these ten ill-advised tracks and cover by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Song of the Snake
2 - New Face in SE13
3 - New Golden Age
4 - Tin Men
5 - My Remaining Eye
6 - Hummingbird [inst. version]
7 - New Breed
8 - The Girl Who Has Everything
9 - Cenotaph
10 - Shit Factory
 
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