13 December 2009

Vic Reeves - Abide With Me

Vic Reeves - Abide With Me

Label: Sense/ Island
Year of Release: 1991

Vic Reeves needs no introduction to UK readers, and I really can't be bothered to give him a detailed one for the benefit of overseas types. His comedy career has never really travelled successfully beyond these Isles, and isn't especially easy to explain to native newcomers, much less people with cultural barriers to contend with. Journalists tend to get around the problem by firing the words "surreal", "slapstick", "music hall", "dada", "Gilbert" and "George" around a bit in the hope it does the work justice, but in truth, it seldom does.

As somebody who had previously had a failed career as a lead singer for a variety of experimental and post-punk bands who never quite elevated themselves beyond the bottom of the bill in various small pub venues, let alone got a record contract, it shouldn't have been too surprising that Vic Reeves signed with Island when his career as a comedian took off. He had already been singing ironic cover versions (or were they?) of songs by The Smiths and Bryan Ferry in the "Vic Reeves Big Night Out" series, and the label must have been hoping for a pleasing Christmas stocking filler in 1991, perhaps consisting of similar material.

What we got was actually a very sympathetically produced comedy album in "I Will Cure You", which combined a number of party-pleasers with some oddball tunes of the man's own making, not least my personal favourite "Summer of '75" which combined rustic folk charm with crude Shane McGowanisms. "Abide With Me" featured on the album, but was a peculiar item, being neither funny nor frothy. The hymn itself was written by Henry Francis Lyte in 1847 as he lay dying from tuberculosis, and has since become something of a funeral standard, meaning that the associations many listeners have of it are not necessarily pleasant ones.

Uproar commenced from certain religious types in the UK when the track was then issued as dance remix single. "This is like dancing on people's graves!" shouted one Reverend, and a largely-forgotten campaign began to get the BBC to ban the record. Whilst the BBC never did officially ban it, I can't recall hearing it on the radio much during Christmas 1991, and Reeves was thwarted in his frankly bizarre attempt to get the number one spot that year, making do with the paltry number 47 instead.

The song itself is actually quite enjoyable with its vocoder declarations of "Abide With Me!", its sampled and treated choir noises, and Vic's rather too spirited vocals, not to mention the groovy house piano noises The Grid layered on to the single. It does somehow manage to over-ride its slightly morbid tone and become a winter solstice disco number rather than a pean to death, but it has to be said that of all the ideas Vic Reeves ever came out with, this surely has to be one of the oddest. That Island thought it might be a hit is odder still. When Lyte lay dying in his bed, his last thought surely can't have been "And when I die, at least my song will be immortalised by a surreal Northern comedian in the next century".

You can view the video here, and download the single by clicking on this link.

Tracklisting:
1. Abide With Me (12" Version)
2. Abide With Me (Holy Dub)
3. Black Night (Full Length 7")
4. Abide With Me (Acapella)


9 December 2009

Marvin Welch Farrar - Lady of the Morning/ Tiny Robin

Marvin Welch Farrar - tiny robin

Label: Regal Zonophone
Year of Release: 1971

Two thirds of Marvin Welch Farrar have already featured on this blog's "Pictures of Marshmallow Men" homebrew compilation, so some of you - or most of you, I actually hope - will already be familiar with the backstory here. Essentially, MWF were just two members of The Shadows attempting to issue vocal material under another name, with the addition of the previously unknown John Farrar. Although largely thought of as an instrumental act, The Shads themselves had occasionally sung on their discs before, but found the public less willing to accept this kind of output - so for the most part, it would appear they decided to draw the boundaries by issuing any material with those things called "lyrics" in it under this guise.

In all honesty, it's probably not what you'd expect. Rather than follow Cliff Richard's lead, it would seem that the band had something of a love affair with West Coast harmonies, and most of their vocal material almost had lovebeads hanging off its Crosby Stills and Nash inspired middle eights. This single showcases their approximation of this style across two sides - "Lady of the Morning" is the less interesting tune (albeit the official A side) in my opinion, consisting of a rather slight melody despite some pleasing bits of pedal steel and top-hole vocal harmonies. The chorus doesn't seem to quite reach any sort of satisfactory peak or conclusion for one thing. "Tiny Robin", on the other hand, is all icicles, plucked guitar strings, spooked vocal melodies, and is a seriously good atmospheric piece. Admittedly it's not really in the same league as The Fleet Foxes for this kind of 'vibe', but surely the fact that we're mentioning Hank Marvin and The Fleet Foxes in the same context is a curious enough phenomenon in itself?

Naturally, although one Marvin Welch Farrar album did manage to chart very modestly, the public's curiosity wasn't really poked, and the project died a death before the seventies were up. Hank Marvin felt that they were alienating an audience who just wanted to hear Shadows material, and failing to gain an adequate new audience who wouldn't accept the idea that what they were doing was in any way credible. As a result, they're not talked about much now, despite having recorded a few tracks any number of Wilson-worshipping indie kids would have killed to pen. It's an unfair world, but at least we can only conclude that it's also certainly an odd one.

Oh, and by the way... this is the first of a few Christmas-inspired uploads you'll be getting on the blog, in case it really needs spelling out to you.


5 December 2009

Five Go Down To The Sea? - Singing in Braille

Five Go Down To The Sea? - Singing in Braille

Label: Creation
Year of Release: 1985

This entry has largely been triggered by me uncovering a review of Creation's first fifty singles over on the mothballed Stylus Magazine website. In this particular retrospective, the resident critic Todd Hutlock states that it is one of the worst pieces of vinyl Creation ever issued, and dismisses the whole affair very tartly indeed, ranking them alongside The Legend in the 'Alan McGee blind spot' stakes.

As you will doubtless appreciate, I seldom get a cob on when people reveal wildly different musical tastes to my own. If this were my general inclination, there would be whole days or possibly weeks when I'd do little more than walk around London foaming at the mouth, demanding to know why Misty's Big Adventure weren't occupying the Christmas number one slot, or why perfectly good friends of mine have been known to state that The Stereophonics are a good band. It's not worth it, and it's easier just to relax, have a nice glass of sherry and allow others to feel differently from your good self, however outright wrong they may be.

For some reason, this particular piece did get me rattled, though. I happen to believe that "Singing in Braille" is actually one of the best early Creation singles there is. Whilst it doesn't quite top "Velocity Girl" by Primal Scream or "Ballad of the Band" by Felt, it is a seriously unique, charged and thrilling bit of work. There's nothing very "Creation" about it in sound, this is true - there's none of the dalliances with walls of feedback which The Jesus and Mary Chain, Slaughter Joe or Meat Whiplash treated us to, and nor are the lo-fi retro-sixties garage jangles overly apparent. What the track does have instead is a decidedly angular, dischordant thrust, with spitting Screaming Lord Sutch styled vocals, wobbly basslines and sledgehammer rhythms. Whilst it does have a chorus of sorts, the entire structure is as gloriously messy as the sleeve, seemingly hanging by a thread but holding together nonetheless. The energy you get from watching good musicians improvise is also apparent here - you expect the entire act to collapse, but instead everything holds together, and is shot through with adrenalin.

Cork's "Five Go Down to The Sea?" would probably have been more at home on Ron Johnson Records than Creation, having a similar style to a great many of their acts. The brilliant biography of Creation "My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry for the Prize" hints that McGee found the band impossible to work with, his doubts possibly being raised when he went around to their houseshare for dinner and was presented with a plate of Jelly Babies.

However easy they were to deal with - and I'd be willing to bet they would have presented anybody a few challenges, never mind a future Tory voting industry mogul - they did create a fantastic noise which they allegedly felt was partly cribbed by Stump at a later date. Sadly, the band ceased to be in 1989 when the frontman Finbarr Donnelly drowned in Hyde Park serpentine pond whilst drunk. There are, to the best of my knowledge, no CD retrospectives available of the band despite numerous vinyl EP issues worming their way on to shop stalls, and that's something somebody should consider rectifying. In the meantime, here's what I consider to be their best moment.

Tracklisting:
1. Singing in Braille
2. Aunt Nelly
3. Silk Brain Worm Women



2 December 2009

Edward Not Edward (an Edward Barton Tribute Album)

Edward Barton - Edward not Edward

Label: Wooden
Year of Release: 1989

When it comes to multimedia artists, a blog entry of a mere few paragraphs doesn't do their careers any great justice. You can't really summarise Billy Childish's career with a few tart observations on his novels, poetry, art and music, purely because there's just far too damn much going on - and on a similar level, I've held off from writing about Mancunian artist, poet and musician Edward Barton for some time now for a very similar set of reasons.

Unlike Childish, however, whose work is comparatively gritty and earthy, Barton has frequently taken the experimental and awkward route with his material in whatever form it's taken. A weather-beaten looking character with his scruffy beard and faintly disappointed eyes, he has nonetheless been responsible for some of the more delicate recordings in music. His most famous (and arguably most successful) piece of writing is the track "It's A Fine Day", which in its acapella form remains the most successful unaccompanied poem in the charts, reaching a none-too-shoddy (under the circumstances) number 87 in 1983. When it was later adopted by candy ravers Opus III nine years later, it reached the top five and apparently set Barton up with enough royalties to do as he damn pleased for awhile.

Alongside the delicate parts of his canon, however, sit songs so ridiculous, jarring and uncomfortable that even a solo period Stephen Jones out of Babybird would have balked at releasing them. The lo-fi and hilarious (if borderline terrifying) "I've Got No Chicken But I've Got Five Wooden Chairs" is a prime example of something which would make less tolerant folk ask "does he consider that music?", and even the more accessible "Not A River" would be rather funky were it not for its lo-fi awkwardness.

As marginal as his behaviour may be, Barton has nonetheless wormed his way into popular culture on a number of unlikely occasions, miming along to Tears for Fears "Sowing the Seeds of Love" on Wogan for no apparent reason, and having his work sampled by Norman Cook in his Fatboy Slim guise. His Channel Four appearances in the eighties met with numerous complaints, despite the fact that he didn't swear or make any references to sexual activity - he was just something the viewing public seemed to find naturally objectionable. The music press gave him plenty of coverage too, and whilst its strange to find one's self remembering the eighties with fondness, it does seem like the last period where somebody genuinely marginal could peak their head over the parapet into the glossy world of popular culture now and then. Barton is still active now, but if you don't read art journals or left-leaning publications, you wouldn't necessarily realise this.

So then, "Edward not Edward" is an Edward Barton tribute album, albeit one issued on his own label - such conflicts of interest seemed not to trouble the man. Some of the artists contained within the grooves seem to understand his unique charm, others seem more puzzled than anything else. The Fatima Mansions work wonders around "Dear Dad", turning it into a track which bounces by with odd off-beats thrown in willy-nilly along with Cathal Coughlan's savage screams. Hats must surely go off to 808 State as well for asking two small girls to sing the childish "Sorry Dog", a ditty focussing on the everyday problem of whether to blame the family dog or not once you've defecated on the floor. Stump also seem closest to Barton's vision in spirit, contributing songs which ultimately sound very Stump-ish without betraying the man's ideas one iota.

It's not a perfect piece of work. Bits of it are downright irritating, in fact - but it's never anything less than interesting.

Oh, and... back in "the day", most music journalists couldn't write about Barton without mentioning his large collection of children's shoes and toys he'd found discarded around Manchester ("it seemed to me that everyone threw their childhood away in the eighties") and his odd ways. He was frequently labelled an eccentric, to which he responded thus: "To not be an eccentric these days, you have to study very hard. The rules of non-eccentricity are multitudinous and hidebound - a whole lifetime's study is necessary to understand and accede to them. I'm just lazy - I want to write good songs and make good pictures." Not a quote you're likely to see in italic font at the foot of the pages of a corporate diary anytime soon, but a damn good one nonetheless.

Tracklisting:

1. Inspiral Carpets: Two Cows
2. Robert McKahey and Kevin Hopper (of Stump): King of a Flat Country
3. Fatima Mansions: Dear Dad
4. Mick Lynch and Chris Salmon (of Stump): Knob Gob
5. Dub Sex: Barber Barber
6. Patrick Mooney: Me and My Mini
7. Louis Philippe: Telephone Box
8. Ted Chippington: Z Bend

Side Two

9. Jane: I Slap My Belly
10. Ruthless Rap Assassins: Z Bend
11. 808 State (with Donna and Emma): Sorry Dog
12. A Guy Called Gerald: Barber Barber
13. Chapter and the Verse: I am a Mother
14. Kiss AMC: Smother
15. Fossil: On A Hot Day

Download it Here (go to "Save File to your PC" in the bottom right hand corner of the information box. No, it's not the most obvious place to put the file, but Sharebee is being rather fucky today, and this is the best I could do).



29 November 2009

Second Hand Record Dip Part 44 - Neville Dickie - For Me and My Gal

Neville Dickie Red Domino

Who: Neville Dickie
What: For Me and My Gal (b/w Happy Days)
Where: Music and Video Exchange, Camden High Street, London
When: 1971
Label: Red Domino
Cost: 50p

(Because obviously, just finding an album of cockney knees-up songs wouldn't do for one month...)

Some of you good readers will be familiar with the work of Neville Dickie. He's a British boogie-woogie and stride piano player, and has been active on the gig circuit with his particularly competent brand of Jools Holland-pleasing piano playing since the sixties.

It wasn't really Dickie's name which caught my eye on this issue as the record label, however. Domino Records in the seventies were not a successful independent issuing waxings by that decade's equivalent of Franz Ferdinand or the Arctic Monkeys (or even Clinic), but rather a very specialist business operation which chose to slip out records likely to be of interest to pub drinkers. Owned by the Ditchburn Organisation who manufactured juke boxes for the smokey taverns of yore, Domino therefore had a roster which included Shep's Banjo Boys, The Old Kent Roadsters and Michael John and His Drinking Partners. None were top sellers, and this is actually the only example of a Domino record I've stumbled across. It's on their mysterious "red" label which presumably carried a different calibre of tune from their common-or-garden black label, although without hearing the contrasting output of the two labels I'm not quite sure how.

Clearly the anticipated market for singles made especially for barflies was never really strong, as the label lasted a mere two years before presumably being written off as a bad idea - that or their distributors Pye Records simply told them to go away after a string of never-ending flops. Their back catalogue reveals a weird little label which could have existed at any time in the history of recorded music, quite honestly, but may have had more success back in the gramophone era.

As for Neville Dickie's effort, it's very much what you'd expect - if you're as clueless about his brand of music as I am, you might describe it as being a very minimalist Lieutenant Pigeon with no thumping beats and groaning vocals. It is not my place to judge whether this is good boogie-woogie or bad boogie-woogie, and I'll leave that for others to comment on.


26 November 2009

Salad - Drink The Elixir

Salad - Drink The Elixir

Label: Island Red Label
Year of Release: 1995

Oh, don't you just hate it when you've said everything you really wanted to say about a band in an entry already? What more can be added to my initial analysis of Salad as a band, which can roughly be summarised as "indie band fronted by model and MTV presenter, started out shit, even their Press Officer confessed that they used to be shit, then suddenly, quite inexplicably, they became rather good"?

Salad are probably one of the biggest Britpop era bands to seemingly have no material still available on-catalogue. They may not exactly have dished out Top 40 singles, but they had enough of a cult following to score a top twenty album ("Drink Me") and were certainly given plenty of media space at their peak. "Drink The Elixir" seemed to be the first release of their careers to pick up some mainstream exposure, getting an ITV Chart Show play in the indie chart (and yes, Island Red were a subsidiary of Island distributed by Vital, pointlessly enough - loads of indie chart rigging of this nature went on in those days) and opening up the ears of previously disinterested people like me.

"Drink The Elixir" is a delightful little single as well, Marijne's cooing vocals balancing on top of some demonic, angular guitar riffs, and a great big clanging conclusion. Unlike many of their peers, Salad did have a slightly abrasive, oddball edge which went largely unnoticed at the time, critics preferring to whine about how their lead singer was a C-list celebrity before the band even started. Whilst there's little doubt that Marijne got the band attention they might not otherwise have received early in their careers, some of their later material would have stood out wonderfully at any time.

Tracklisting:
1. Drink The Elixir
2. Kiss My Love
3. Julius
4. Diminished Clothes (live)


22 November 2009

Earl Brutus - (some of) the Post-Deceptive Singles


We've already covered Earl Brutus' independent label years on here, (and here) and as ever, there's not much I can add to my original assessment of the band. For me, they were a beacon of hope in the late nineties as British alternative guitar-based pop and rock largely began to congeal into a syrupy, nostalgic mess. They sounded unlike other bands, pulling in Krautrock, techno, unholy slabs of glam rock and punk into one bundle, and coming up with something that sounded new and enticing.

If their earliest years consisted largely of material which was quickly recorded and the aural equivalent of a quick smack around the chops, their Island material sounded more considered (with the exception of one or two tracks) and none the worse for it.



Earl Brutus - The SAS And The Glam That Goes With It

Year of Release: 1997

Tracklisting:
1. The SAS And The Glam That Goes With It
2. Midland Red
3. The Scottish

This single was the first out of the major label vaults, and sounded brilliant from the screeching collision of angular guitar riffs and mechanical skidding noises at the start. "YOU ARE YOUR OWN REACTION!" the band screamed in the chorus, and created a lyrical list single which, far from being a list of grievances or commandments a la Scroobius Pip's "Thou Shalt Always Kill", was Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire" gone to la-la land. "TV Chefs - Quiche Lorraine Attitudes" they sneer disapprovingly one minute, then state "Hair Design By Nicky Clarke" the next.

Quite berserk and quite brilliant.


Earl Brutus - Come Taste My Mind

Year of Release: 1998

Tracklisting:
1. Come Taste My Mind
2. Superstar
3. Nice Man In A Bubble
4. William, Taste My Mind

Follow-up "Come Taste My Mind" is no less absurd lyrically, beginning with the information "I wear the clothes that make you cry", but is rather more formulaic than its predecessor, being a straight-ahead glam stormer the band tended to specialise in, rather than a track which skidded all over pop's Formula One racecourse before crashing in flames halfway round the circuit. Some music critics predicted a hit, but even at their most simplistic, the band were clearly too much for Mr and Mrs Woolworths.


Earl Brutus - Larky/ Teenage Opera

Label: Fruition
Year of Release: 1999

Tracklisting:
1. Larky
2. Teenage Opera
3. England Sandwich

The single "The Universal" followed "Come Taste My Mind", but is still available on iTunes in all its two-CD with extra B sides glory, quite astonishingly. This, however, isn't. After the band were dropped by Island, their management company Fruition decided to have one final stab at getting the band's material the respect it deserved, and released the double A-side "Larky/ Teenage Opera" without any major backing. To be honest, it's a fine double-header, "Larky" being a list of comedy catchphrases and advertising slogans sneered out over glam chords, complete with the chorus of "You won't live forever".

"Teenage Opera" resembles Blur's "Song 2" in places, but is so replete with peculiar samples, muttered phrases and clicking rhythms that it's like listening to that song through some peculiar kind of vortex. Meanwhile, the official 'B side' "England Sandwich" is a marvellous cut-up of prim, dispassionate British television samples set to Iggy Pop riffage.

There's little doubt in my mind that Earl Brutus were completely unique, and whilst it's sometimes hard to envisage quite where they would have gone if their recording career had continued from this point, Nick Sanderson and his friends certainly left a hell of a legacy before he died last year.

Please click on the titles to download the singles.


18 November 2009

Sweeping the Nation "Noughties By Nature"


Just a quick update to let all you all know that "Sweeping The Nation" are presently spending the rest of the year looking back at some of the best tracks of the Noughties, with contributions from other folk included.

Naturally, I've chipped in a few suggestions (starting with David Cronenberg's Wife here) and there's plenty of other people also pitching in with artists as varied as Jarvis Cocker, Girls Aloud, The Avalanches, The Hold Steady, Bright Eyes, and Kate Nash. Plenty to savour there, and also enough to shout abuse at the screen about too, I'd say. What more could you possibly want from a comprehensive list of various tracks which were released in a certain timeframe?

Sadly, no mention of The Vengaboys, David Sneddon or even Howard Brown yet, but I'm hanging on with hope and confidence that somebody will do the right thing.


17 November 2009

Second Hand Record Dip Part 43 - Larkin' Abaht!

Larkin Abaht

Who: The Mike Sammes Singers plus assorted cast of actors
What: Larkin Abaht!
Where: Music and Video Exchange, Camden High Street
When: 1960
Label: Realm/ Oriole
Cost: 50p

Caw blimey, we're going back a bit with this 'un. "The Larkins" was a British television sitcom devised in the fifties, and apparently marketed to rival the American influx of such entertainment. It featured Alf Larkin (played by David Kossoff) a matter-of-fact cockney gent who was ruled over by his considerably more forthright wife (Peggy Mount). It had absolutely nothing to do with the "Darling Buds of May" despite the use of the "Larkin" surname.

Numerous critics praised the series for its sharpness of wit, and as a result the inevitable spin-offs - oh, there have always been spin-offs it seems, since the media began - emerged. One such production was the obligatory film-of-the-sit-com "Inn For Trouble" which was lunched into British cinemas in 1959. And then in 1960, the album "Larkin' Abaht" reared its head, only to remain largely unplayed by at least one punter who clearly dumped it in the Camden Music and Video Exchange some fifty years later. Truly, you don't come across albums from 1960 which are this "mint" very often.

Whether you're a fan of the original programme or not, it has to be said that this album does seem rather short of wit. It's essentially a compilation of cockney songs (as the title would suggest) performed by the Mike Sammes Singers, all linked together in the guise of a live pub performance, with bits of heckling and dialogue from the various actors between tracks. Given the popularity of the television series it's an important artefact, but an inessential overall piece of work, I'd say. There's some smileworthy glib comments here and there, and if you haven't heard "I'm Shy Mary Ellen, I'm Shy" before there are worse versions around than the one available here - but that's the most praise I can give, I'm afraid, apart from to add that the pub noise and dialogue does paint a fairly charming picture.

As I've mentioned on this blog before, Oriole Records did have a nasty habit of wiping their master tapes regularly, so I'm unsure if this particular album has been scrubbed clean by some daft executive. Regardless of whether that's true or not, this is a very pristine, virtually scratch-free copy of the record, and so may be the best version we're going to get for now whatever the state of the masters. Sorry for offering the entirety of the album in the form of two tracks ("Side One" and "Side Two"). Due to the continually flowing nature of the record, it's difficult to divide the content up in other ways using the technology I have available to me.

You can read more about "The Larkins" over on "Television Heaven".

Tracklisting:
1. Wot Cher! (Knock'd 'Em in The Old Kent Road)
2. For Old Times Sake
3. I'm Shy Mary Ellen, I'm Shy
4. The Hobnailed Boots That Farver Wore
5. Across The Bridge
6. Don't Have Any More Missus Moore

Side Two
7. When Father Papered The Parlour
8. The Miner's Dream Of Home
9. They Built Piccadilly For Me
10. It's A Great Big Shame
11. The Golden Wedding
12. If It Wasn't For The 'Ouses In Between

15 November 2009

Windmill - Big Bertha

windmill - big bertha

Label: MCA
Year of Release: 1969

Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley were major players in the British sixties scene, producing hits primarily for Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich, but also sneaking out top-selling discs by a wide variety of other smiling sixties scoundrels too. Arguably their most famous composition amongst the cool kids in the beat collector cult is The Honeycombs Meek-produced "Have I The Right?" Besides that, they also worked with The Herd, Lulu, and even Elvis Presley.

Suffice to say, a band launched as a Howard-Blaikley project were normally assured big-time success, and Windmill, their first post-DDDBMT act, had high hopes attached to them. With press releases being rushed out assuring the public that Windmill would 'inject some dynamics into a dull scene', "Big Bertha" was the debut single. With it's strangely Higsons-esque (in retrospect) yells of "Hoo ha!", puffing flutes (hey! Dig that concession to the fast approaching prog rock movement!) and a driving chorus, only a fool would have betted on this single's failure at the time.

Nonetheless, it was a flop, and forty years down the line we're only left with the option of dissecting precisely why. Developing trends in music can't have helped - Dave Dee and his ridiculously-named pals were already rather passe by 1969, so introducing a new band producing similar cheery, upbeat pop with the same team behind them probably wasn't the wisest idea. On top of that, there's something very by-numbers about the sound of "Big Bertha". In a similar manner to the way that the lowest-ranking Stock Aitken and Waterman hits always sounded like cast-offs, "Big Bertha" feels similar, almost as if the chaps behind it offered it to a big-name act first, then threw it in the direction of their new boys when no other takers stepped forward. This is very probably wrong, but the track is memorable without being thrilling, catchy without having substance. The band give it plenty of welly and attempt to generate some excitement with their buzzing guitar noises and chirpy vocals, but something, somewhere, sounds rather flat. That's not to say that the single isn't worthy of a spin, and is certainly enjoyable enough for a few listens, but that's as good as it gets.

Windmill released a number of other singles - including the apparently psychedelic "Wilbur's Thing" - but none attracted the public's attention, and the band's career was cut tragically short when lead singer Dick Scott died in a car accident. The other members subsequently went on to form Prog Rock outfit Tonton Macroute, of whom I must confess I know nothing. But hey, there's a video of "Big Bertha" on Youtube here, which I surely can't be alone in finding incredibly surprising.