v/a - Political Piggies (1984) C60

This was the first compilation put out by Trev Ward and Dave Padbury, then collectively known as Opera for Infantry. Opera for Infantry eventually morphed into the Grey Wolves and had a string of hits, as you'll probably remember, whilst simultaneously stirring up controversy of a general thrust implying they might actually subscribe to some of the extreme Fascist beliefs blasted forth in their music. Having met them a couple of times and spent at least a few years writing to Trev, I'm confident of this being complete bollocks, and clues as to why I might hold with such a conviction can be found here, a tape firmly rooted in the short-lived but fertile period of cross fertilisation occurring between weirdy electronics and the anarchopunk scene; and yes, I'm well aware of all that post-left green anarchist shite having been plopped out of the same arse, but that's something else entirely...

I think this was also the first compilation to which I was asked to contribute, so apologies for my tracks. Marginally less crackly versions can be found elsewhere on this blog if you're stupid enough to look for them. Anyway, it was massively exciting finding myself sharing ferric oxide with Nocturnal Emissions, Nurse With Wound and the Apostles, and I still say this was a fantastic genre-busting tape. You'll probably recognise a few of the names here, and I'm pretty sure the Nocturnal Emissions and Nurse With Wound tracks resurfaced elsewhere, although The Strange Life of August Strindberg was almost certainly an exclusive at the time. Steve Stapleton was known for his generosity when it came to tape labels no-one had heard of asking him for tracks. There's more by Anarchist Angels and Family Patrol Group elsewhere on this blog, if you want to check the index. There's more about Epidemic on the excellent Punky Gibbon site, and Alternative and the Destructors were pretty big names at one point so you should be able to find something about them if you look. Alternative released stuff on Crass, for example.

I suspect they may have been experiencing some technical difficulties at Anal Probe Tapes world headquarters when they were running off my copy of this tape, unless the fuck ups were on the master copy. The tracks varied in recording volume quite a bit so I've tried to bring the quieter ones up to the same level. Also there were a couple of instances of what sounds like a lead cutting out - first during Living a Lie, after which the track comes back much louder. I did some fucking about, raised the volume of the first verse, and copied the missing riff from later in the track so as to effect a repair, which is hopefully better than listening to the track with a few seconds silence just as the chorus kicks off. There was also a gap in the middle of Seen through Tear Stained Eyes, occurring during a sung passage ruling out the possibility of making a repair by copying anything from elsewhere in the song, so I've er... just copied and reversed a bit to at least make the screw up sound deliberate, which will probably make more sense if you listen to the thing.

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

Tracks:
1 - Nocturnal Emissions - Rabbits Don't Cry
2 - Anarchist Angels - I Cry with Despair
3 - Destructors V - Urban Terrorist
4 - Do Easy - Waterside at 12
5 - Epidemic - Living a Lie
6 - White Elephants Over Jamaica - Adverts
7 - Alternative - Seen through Tear Stained Eyes
8 - Do Easy - Kick the Dwarf
9 - Epidemic - No Identity
10 - Family Patrol Group - Cronus
11 - Opera for Infantry - Resettlement
12 - Destructors V - Khmer Rouge Boogie
13 - The Cause for Concern - The Occasional Me and You
14 - Alternative - Caroline's Carnival
15 - Nurse With Wound - The Strange Life of August Strindberg
16 - The Apostles - The Phoenix

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Regular - Regulation Issue (1988) C60

Regular was the work of John Jasper, the man behind the Joneses and with whom I worked on the Illyana Rasputin tape. I already wrote plenty about him on the blog entries for those two, so please feel free to have a quick look at them so as to avoid my having to repeat myself. I can wait.

John recorded a ton of this stuff, and due to the general indeterminacy of his character, it wasn't always easy to tell when he'd run me off a copy of his new shit, or whether he'd just nicked a few bits and pieces from obscure On-U label records and failed to mention that they weren't actually by him. Anyway, the point is that he was very prolific, and this was definitely all his own work, and presumably the stuff of which he was most proud judging by the fact that he went down to that place on Rochester High Street which had a colour photocopier, ran off a load of covers, and decided it was an album. As you can probably tell, he was significantly influenced by On-U, Sherwood, Tackhead, Scientist, all of those guys, and for my money he definitely brought something new to the table.

The credits found on the insert were mostly pulled out of John's head, although let's face it, we've all been there with our own imaginary bands. I'm not credited but that's my voice you can hear on A Voice in the East, and also my cheapo Casio sampler which lived around at John's house for about a year. Glenn Wallis of Konstruktivists lived just up the road from John around this time, and I definitely remember them attempting to record something together. The voice on Naked They Go does actually sound a little like Glenn doing one of his characters, but I suspect it's something John took off the radio or another record. Janine, John's girlfriend of the time, can be clearly heard vocalising on Punjabi, but beyond that I've no idea where to draw the line between fantasy and reality. I'm not sure why Regular either - knowing John it was probably some esoteric nod to Reg Varney.

John was the most violently unreliable man on earth, but also a lovely guy and very funny, and I still sort of miss him. More than anything I wish he'd spread a few more of these tapes around, or that someone had chucked a load of money at him and forced him to put out a record; but never mind.

Download the sixteen tracks, cover and insert by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Mission Impossible (Martial)
2 - Come into the Room
3 - Ghetto Swinger
4 - Touch (dub)
5 - Echo Bass (dub)
6 - A Voice in the East (a Memory)
7 - Naked They Come...
8 - Naked They Go
9 - Touch (Seikh Massacre)
10 - Touchdown
11 - Punjabi (Vaca-Dabi)
12 - Powder Room
13 - Bone Rattle
14 - Swing Low
15 - Likrish Tash
16 - Massacre

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Lead Shoes - Lead Up the Garden Path (1985) C46

Unlikely Records - whom I suppose might be best remembered for an early release of those Milovan Srdenovic numbers which were eventually reissued as Songs from West of the Pelvic Girdle - sent out a request for material. Put your best stuff on a C50, suggested Robert Cox, and if I like it we'll release it on Unlikely Records. I put together a Do Easy tape, which was rejected for obvious reasons, but I also mentioned the proposal to Steve Coots, with whom I shared a house. Like myself, Steve was on the Time Based Media course at Maidstone College of Art. To be honest, he could be fucking hard work at times, but he was often funny and I really liked the music which he recorded in the college sound studio under the name Lead Shoes.

 

Unfortunately, Unlikely Records didn't seem to like Lead Shoes any more than they had liked Do Easy, so I offered to put the thing out on my own label. Lead Up the Garden Path, was Steve's best of tape. There's a potted history of the band on the cover, included with the download, which I can't be arsed to type out here, but for what it's worth I recall Eat Your Peas as being fucking great, and I really wish I'd kept a copy, or that Steve had included it here, but never mind. Steve was into a lot of music which I couldn't stand and still can't - Pink Floyd and Genesis, but also Philip Glass, Michael Nyman and those guys, the influences of which you can probably hear on this collection. Neither the Cockney Rejects nor Sham 69 had established much of a presence in his record collection. I'm not even sure he owned a copy of Machine Gun Etiquette. Mental.

 

Lead Shoes were named after a pseudo-surrealist film by Sidney Peterson which Steve loved, although I wasn't that impressed when I saw it as part of our film course. Steve later ended up in a somewhat laboured wacky folk band with Charles Thompson called Heads on Springs. They were a sort of trying too hard hey kids, poetry isn't just for squares type operation which I prefer not to remember in detail, just as I prefer not to remember sharing a house with Steve in detail, but even with such unpleasantries in mind, it has to be said that the guy recorded some fucking great music. It also has to be said that Steve McGarrigle's wonderful trumpet playing on a few of these tracks didn't hurt.

 

This tape makes use of Brian Eno's old EMS synthesiser and the poorly quantified involvement of someone from ...and the Native Hipsters. There were two covers because the first one didn't photocopy very well, featuring a photograph of the head of a tailor's dummy called Norman. Steve had Norman placed at an upper floor window of an earlier house in which he'd lived so as to cause innocent passers by to shit themselves when they caught sight of him.

Download the twelve tracks and two covers by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Sniffing Glue
2 - My Street
3 - Baseball on Sunday
4 - Beautiful Dreamer
5 - Drowning in a Coffee Pot
6 - Submerged
7 - Blink
8 - Night Soiler
9 - Holding My Nose
10 - Four Legged Friend
11 - Waltz
12 - Happy Feet


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Family Patrol Group - Fear Death by Water (1983) C60

Back when I was just a schoolboy in short trousers, I went to see Whitehouse play live at a pub in Birmingham. I'm not sure if it was the first gig I ever attended, and I can't be bothered to check, but it was probably one of them. I went with my friend Grez, and possibly also Jez, although I have a feeling he may not have been able to make it - it was a long time ago. Anyway, despite being a youthful bag of nerves I made a new friend just by standing outside the venue with a Come Org badge proudly sported upon the lapel of my school blazer. His name was Colin Fisher and I think he'd helped organise the event. He was a member of Family Patrol Group, one of the two support bands, the other lot being D.Mag 52 / SHC standing for Death Magazine 52 and Spontaneous Human Combustion because they had two names, not yet having decided which they preferred. We went in and my eyes boggled at what the inside of a pub looked like. I noticed a bloke resembling the Shend from the Cravats stood on the other side of the room fighting off a massive crowd of fans, and David Tibet was perched at the next table reading out the lyrics to Whitehouse's Rock and Roll to his pals and making them laugh. It was exciting, and also kind of scary.

Family Patrol Group were first on with a fifteen minute wall of noise, followed by D.Mag 52 / SHC, who were good, but not as good, finishing with Whitehouse, who were terrifying. A glass casually lobbed into the audience by one of the Whitehousers hit Grez squarely on the top of the head. I turned to him so as to opine something along the lines of fuck this - let's go home and found my question answered in dramatic fashion by blood gushing down his face from where the glass had hit. This incident has somewhat coloured my view of Whitehouse since, but to get to the point, Family Patrol Group really stole the evening for me. There was something about the pure force of their noise, like standing before the business end of a jet engine, and a jet engine which caught our attention without turning the event into the pre-title sequence of an episode of Casualty.

I kept in touch with Colin and bought a few tapes off him, then saw Family Patrol Group again later that same year supporting a couple of bands I don't even remember - Seduction and Baptism with Fire. One of them was a Bauhaus tribute act or something along those lines. This second gig is captured on Fear Death by Water, or at least on my copy. I've a feeling the original tape may have been just the four studio tracks, and I added the recording of the gig in support of Whitehouse myself seeing as there was plenty of room on the tape. I had the impression that Fear Death by Water wasn't so much an official thing as just a tape they might slip you if they could be arsed. The cover doesn't give much away, certainly no titles, and some of this stuff turned up on compilation tapes with titles which may have come from the group, or may have come from whoever was putting out the compilation. I get the impression they were more interested in the live setting, and to be fair, they were fucking amazing live on the two occasions I saw them.

I still don't know much about Family Patrol Group, although their internet presence seems to have increased since the last time I looked, and there's even a website with a list of gigs performed. Their commitment to power electronics conventions of the time seemed tongue-in-cheek bordering on sarcastic, at least going by what Colin said about their Beyond Nilsen stickers. They clearly figured somewhere in that whole Birmingham noise thing which also bequeathed us Final, Smear Campaign, Con-Dom, Godflesh and so on, and the two who weren't Colin Fisher had also been involved with D. Mag 52 / SHC, concerning which, please feel free to interpret whatever else you may feel you need to know from this excerpt from one of Colin's letters:

I'm not in D. Mag 52 / SHC, but the other two are. I'll give you the D. Mag 52 / SHC potted history if you like. Originally a large band of around nine members, fluctuating line up depending on who could attend, no rehearsals, just found instruments before gigs usually. Mainly metal bashing, drums, and other percussion, like Test Dept at times. Slimmed to five, four, or six piece - then mainly metal, tapes and vocals. Then down to two hardcore members - others thrown out or dissuaded. No gigs, but still fluctuating as people replace one another. At the Mermaid, Simon was helped out by a friend. The other hardcore member - Paul - was on 'holiday'. Truth is he was a bit embarrassed at supporting Whitehouse. I think he felt it was pointless trying to compete with them, as we all did, but nevertheless we didn't bottle out. After Family Patrol Group degenerated to nothing, mainly because of my absence at Sunday afternoon jamming sessions, Mike Grant, Family Patrol Group vocalist, was looking for gigs to play as D. Mag 52 / SHC, playing alongside Simon and Paul with Greg, our tape person. They got two, one at a pub which has a regular free spot on Monday evenings, and the second was at an all day festival where Nick Lowe was the main artist. They got ₤100 to play this, but I was told they used ₤80 in preparation by going into the recording studio to record backing tapes. I think it may have been Mike Grant's idea as he had not been into a studio before and was quite keen to do so. Anyhow, I didn't go to either of the above two, mainly due to Mike Grant falling out with me. Nothing serious, just once when we were in a pub he ignored me and he's never spoken since.

I'm therefore assuming that Family Patrol Group were Colin Fisher, Mike Grant, and some dude called Greg, but I'd be very happy to be corrected on any of this - always happy to revisit this little corner of noise history, given that you probably won't get to read about it in books written by tossers for whom it all started with comedy acts such as Ministry.

Download the tape, cover and flyer by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Fighting Cocks, Moseley 17/12/83
2 - Fear Death by Water I
3 - Fear Death by Water II
4 - Fear Death by Water III
5 - Fear Death by Water IV
6 - The Mermaid, Sparkbrook 27/8/83


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v/a - Paranoia is Awareness (1982) C90

Regardless of anything else, it really has to be said that Larry Peterson knew how to put a compilation together. A Sudden Surge of Power, which he released on his own Cause for Concern label, remains pretty much my favourite of its kind, and frankly it still pisses over better publicised tapes from the same era, notably the undoubtedly decent but somewhat overrated Red Sand. I'll put A Sudden Surge of Power up here at some point in the not too distant future, but in the meantime, here's Paranoia is Awareness - Larry's first compilation, maybe not the classic that was the later collection, but a fucking good showing nevertheless.

Because I'm a generous old fucker, I've scanned the A4 booklet which came with the tape, so that's included as a series of JPEG files in the folder which comes with the download. My copy was customised by various members of the Apostles and the Assassins of Hope, adding sarcastic commentary to their own respective pages before Larry got the thing to the safety of an envelope with my name and address written on it, so although I've cleaned up all the scans as much as I could so as to get rid of yellowing, coffee stains and so on, I left the thoughts of Chairman Martin as they were because it seemed right to do so.

The inclusion of the booklet also means I don't need to spend too much time telling you about these artists. You should be familiar with the Apostles, Matfield & the Pond and We Be Echo if you've been following this blog, and Third Door from the Left were the group of which Kevin Thorne was a part before he started recording as We Be Echo. The track here is actually an excerpt from a Third Door from the Left live tape released by Cause for Concern, one which I might put up here providing it hasn't been reissued by Vinyl on Demand (I still haven't got around to checking, although I know Frank did Face the Firing Squad on vinyl). You will no doubt recognise the Nocturnal Emissions tracks which first appeared on their classic Fruiting Body album which you own, or you should own, and if you don't, get the fuck away from me. I think Plastic Bag were pals of Nigel from Nocturnal Emissions as they had a mailing address around the corner in Camberwell and used to put out a zine called Apocalypso a Go Go, of which one issue was full of extremely naughty pictures and another was a special on Nocturnal Emissions. They also recorded some great harsh electronics as Brides of Christ II. Finally, I seem to recall seeing Nervous Legion mentioned in the cassette column in Sounds a good year before Dave Henderson started the whole Wild Planet thing, so I have the impression they were something significant which vanished off the radar just as I was becoming aware of this sort of stuff. I'm sure Larry told me that the guy behind Nervous Legion committed suicide, but I could be getting my wires crossed. Terrorist, as it appears on the tape, seems to end with the sort of repetitive scratches which suggest it may have been taped from a 7" single (can't be heard here due to my cleaning up process), which is intriguing; so if anyone knows anything about Nervous Legion, I'd love to know more. I've always thought those two Nervous Legion tracks were the bollocks.

Download all thirty-five tracks, cover and twenty-page booklet by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - The Apostles - Redifusion Refugee
2 - The Apostles - Escaping Again
3 - Matfield & the Pond - Toxteth
4 - Matfield & the Pond - Paem Wyrd (theme)
5 - Matfield & the Pond - All My Toys
6 - Nervous Legion - Terrorist
7 - Nervous Legion - Gas
8 - NCP - Wild Thing / Johnny B. Goode / Standard Punk Song
9 - Assassins of Hope - Prisoner of Law
10 - Assassins of Hope - Rejection
11 - The Cause for Concern - Some Suffer
12 - Tom Castle - Adric
13 - Red Herring - Newman's New Trees I (advertisement)
14 - Red Herring - EZ Chew (advertisement)
15 - Tom Castle - This Place is So Rewarding
16 - Red Herring - Extranose (advertisement)
17 - Red Herring - Newman's New Trees II (advertisement)
18 - Tom Castle - You Stop Me (Doing What I Want)
19 - Red Herring - Newman's New Trees III (advertisement)
20 - APF Brigade - Dreaming
21 - APF Brigade - Burnt Offering
22 - APF Brigade - 1805-1945
23 - Third Door from the Left - Live at the Ship
24 - Nocturnal Emissions - LD50
25 - Nocturnal Emissions - Routine Surveillance Exercise
26 - The Event Group - Seward Rap
27 - Michael Jones - Uncle & Auntie Bastard
28 - Michael Jones - Delicious Enemy
29 - Michael Jones - Dance of the Wild Brains
30 - Michael Jones - Drinking Like Mad
31 - Plastic Bag - In the Corridors of a Train
32 - Swinging 3-Man Junta - Untitled
33 - Swinging 3-Man Junta - Larry is a Rock Star
34 - Alien Kulture - The Burden
35 - Tom Castle - Doors of the Mind

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Acrobatic Champions (1985) C15

This was a solo tape by Paul of Die Brücke, Apricot Brigade, Envy, and a million other musical identities. You may remember he had a couple of tracks on Moraals, possibly. I asked him if I could put some of his stuff out on my crappy label, and he said yes, picking the name Acrobatic Champions from either a TV documentary or a kid's book about bats, which are apparently quite acrobatic in their own way, and which appealed to Paul's sense of humour.

A full sixty-minute tape was to come, but first there was this because I liked the idea of putting out C15s for fifty pee (inc. P&P) on the grounds that it was cheap, no-one else seemed to be doing it, and it seemed like a good way to get the music out there. Flowers and Skylight were both composed as soundtrack material to a film and a video piece of the same names made by Paul as part of his degree at Maidstone College of Art, both recorded in the sound studio associated with our course. The third track was just something he came up with to bring the whole up to fifteen minutes. I watched him record it then asked what it was to be called, and he said, I'll name it Piranha, after the tape, because the C15 master copy was a brand of cassette manufactured by a company called Piranha. Crazy times.

For what it's worth, the distortion you can hear on Flowers is part of the music rather than the result of a knackered old cassette. Paul was somewhat ahead of the curve in his use of deliberately distressed sounds, at least in a blatantly composed and musical context. He really should have been disgustingly famous.

Download the C15 and its cover by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Flowers
2 - Skylight
3 - Piranha After the Tape


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Enhoenta Bödlar - William Bennett in the Sky with Diamonds (1985) C60

I don't know much about this one, at least not beyond what I've already said about Enhoenta Bödlar in previous blog entries - and before anyone gets snippy, the name seemed to get a different spelling every time it appeared, so I just stick with the one I like best. This came out on Trev Ward's Anal Probe - a tape label which seemed to switch identity every year. By 1987 they were probably Zeal SS or something else I'm slightly wary of naming here for fear of attracting undesirables, and this tape was listed as the work of Bomb the Day Nursery. Actually, as my copy came with what appears to be the original artwork for the sleeve - letraset and bits of paper glued on rather than a photocopy, it seems likely I had the last copy sent out before gender reassignment.

For a period it seemed that the duo of Uddah-Buddah and Roger Karmanik recorded and released material as both Enhoenta Bödlar and Bomb the Day Nursery, and a few tracks from Enhoenta Bödlar's first album appeared here and there credited to Bomb the Day Nursery. That said, I always assumed that Bomb the Day Nursery was more Roger's thing given his enduring fascination with those initials in Bodies Drowned Natural, Brighter Death Now, and possibly others I've never heard of. William Bennett in the Sky with Diamonds may be just Roger for all I know.

There's no track list below because there isn't one on the cassette, just two lengthy pieces, each taking up one side of a C60, and probably released through Anal Probe because of Trev's interest in ritual and atmospheric music, that being as good a description for this as any. If you want to know what you're possibly about to download, it's mostly layered loops with a heavily tribal feel, something in the direction of Muslimgauze or even that stuff David Byrne did with Brian Eno. I wouldn't absolutely swear that it dates from 1985, but it can't have been much later, and whenever it was, it was some way ahead of its time when you consider what else was around. I've never quite worked out the significance of the reference to the Whitehouse dude, and assume that was just someone pissing about and having a laugh, but it seems coincidentally and peculiarly prescient considering how much this shares with the stuff he ended up doing as Cut Hands.

Download the tape and cover by clicking on this link.

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