The Outer Limits - Dark Side Of The Moon/ Black Boots

Label: Decca

Year of Release: 1971

The Outer Limits are no strangers to this blog, having been covered around this time last year on a segment about popsike Christmas records. Having Jeff Christie (of "Yellow River" fame) on lead vocals and having issued one killer 45 on Deram in 1967 ("Just One More Chance") they never really seemed to realise their full potential commercially. 

By 1971 Christie had already gone off to sing about peculiar coloured rivers on hits of his own, so it's not clear if this single contains the remaining line-up of The Outer Limits carrying on regardless, is a studio out-take from before Christie's departure, or another band entirely - but whatever the facts, it's the B-side we're most interested in.  The A-side is a piece of early seventies pop so shiny and plasticky you can almost see your face in it, and while it has a lot of bounce, it also has all the drive, emotion and conviction of a breakfast cereal advert.  It's safe to say that it did not inform the direction of Pink Floyd's seminal album of the same name.

On the other hand, The B-side "Black Boots" is one of those moody instro-groovers you more commonly tend to find on sixties flipsides, but more interestingly still the bass-line hook is nearly note-for-note identical to The Stranglers "Nice 'n' Sleazy".  I doubt Guildford's most terrifying band deliberately stole it, but it is another example (alongside Leatherhead's "Gimme Your Money Please") of how many traces of the men in black could be found in pre-punk recordings.  Maybe Bob Stanley was right when he wrote in his excellent book "Yeah Yeah Yeah - The Story of Modern Pop" that the main thing linking the band to the punk movement is that they seemed like a nasty bunch of bastards.   

Thanks to Planet Mondo for pointing out the riff some time back, and apologies for the pops and crackles on the copy I managed to find.

Barking & Houndsditch Choral Society - Queen of the Alley Dogs/ Dog Rock

Label: Track

Year of Release: 1973

God knows what it is, but the novelty of records consisting of singing dogs never quite wore thin for the music industry.  First there was the infamous Singing Dog novelty hit of 1957, then in the eighties Simon Cowell had a crack with Wonderdog, and between the two was this ridiculous effort on the otherwise highly credible and rockist Track Records label.

Given that Pete Townshend wrote a single called "Dogs" with The Who and apparently toyed with the idea of fleshing out the story of a London dog racing track across a concept album, it would be tempting to try and pretend this was some kind of lost Who off-cut.  With Terence Stamp in the credits here and his brother Chris Stamp responsible for managing The Who, the plot thickens further.  All this  evaporates when you check the rest of the credits and actually hear the damn thing, though - producer Ian Green has previously bothered "Left and to the Back" with the tragic Microbe single "Groovy Baby" and has no connections with the band, mainly working across the pop world.  The rest of the credits are equally unpromising.

From this we can only deduce that Track Records, for reasons known only to themselves, thought it might be a wheeze to hurl this novelty single out into an indifferent world.  As singles of its kind go, it's decently executed.  Technology had certainly moved on significantly since The Singing Dogs, and these canines really sound like they're going for it.  For real, dudes.  Do you need to hear it more than once, though?  No.  And nor am I going to waste an evening dissecting its contents, as that's a bridge too far even for me.  

The B-side, however, could be called an instrumental groover if you're feeling particularly optimistic or happen to be in the mood for getting everyone's hopes up on ebay.  Whatever, woof woof woof.  For now, I'll just file this single under "peculiar music industry anomalies".

H.T. - You And Me/ Love Can Wait

Label: Polydor

Year of Release: 1966

It's fair to say that bands from the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar have not been widely chronicled in the great encyclopaedia of pop.  The island has in the past hosted major rock festivals and concerts, but its homegrown talent hasn't really made any significant impact globally.  

H.T. were a group otherwise occasionally known as The Valverde Brothers (or is it the other way around?) who had a crack at pop success with this single.  The minimal nature of it is immediately striking without being particularly hard-hitting.  The verses consist of a simple pounding rhythm, the repetition of one finger-picked chord and something close to political protest singing.  "We're gonna plant an acorn, yeah… when it grows in eighty years, remind them of you and me!" they holler, then eventually the chorus gains a tiny bit of traction only for the song to quickly slide straight back into minimalism again, the verses acting as peculiar strips of emptiness between the main action.  It's structurally bizarre, but not threatening or snotty enough to be classified as garage or mod, far too meaty and beaty to be psychedelic, and despite its best intentions the jolliness of the vocals makes it seem like some peculiar hybrid of "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing" and The Eyes.  I like it for being so strange within the confines of quite a bubblegum performance, but I suspect it might be an acquired taste.

The Valverde Brothers never really had any success in the UK, but they did eventually achieve notoriety through their production and songwriting work on Peter Wyngarde's worrying album "When Sex Leers Its Inquisitive Head".  That certainly proved that they had the chops for creating even more adventurous and peculiar work than this, but (perhaps for the best) their career as studio-men for politically incorrect perv-pop records was abandoned quite swiftly, and they eventually achieved minor success in mainland Europe with a string of disco records in the late seventies.  

Orphan - Julie Isn't Julie In The Bath/ Timebombs

Label: Brilliant
Year of Release: 1983

Sometimes a record catches my eye in a record store or ebay which I'm aware already has a bit of a low-level internet buzz about it. By this, I mean that a simple Google search reveals all kinds of questions about its origins or raves on internet forums, but no actual real information.

This is one such (well, I wouldn't have bothered with that opening paragraph if it weren't, not unless I was trying to be all post-modern and clever).  I must admit to being aware of its reputation but never having heard a single note of it until the needle hit the groove.  It soon became apparent what the fuss was about - this is pristine eighties pop with a distinctly post-punk and psychedelic twist.  Strict and even yet somehow quirky beats and synth splashes rub up against smooth guitar riffs, utterly peculiar lyrics (why Julie isn't Julie in the bath is never quite explained) and a faintly uneasy, film noir atmosphere.  A subtle chorus also creeps up on you more and more with each play, until the entire thing has infected your brain and won't leave.  It's unassuming to begin with, then all-consuming.  Only the squeaky synth instrumental section spoils the production values, but I suspect that probably seemed cutting edge when the song was recorded in 1981.

It would seem that Orphan formed in Birmingham at some point around 1978 or 1979, containing members Phill Dunn, Phil Campion, Pete Dunn, Phil Vickers, Keith Jones, Trevor Wigley and Steve Leighton.  They had become a solid fixture on the Birmingham gig circuit by the early eighties, and seemed to get themselves attached to the label Swoop, which was run by Lee Sound Studios in Walsall.     At least three singles ("RSVPU", "Nervous" and "Love on the Lichfield Line") slipped out on this imprint, but in the manner of most boutique labels run by recording studios, the connection failed to generate any hits for them.  It seems as if this track was then licensed to Brilliant Records in 1983 in an attempt to generate a better chance of chart action. Far from being a super major with clout, though, Brilliant was an indie distributed by Spartan, and the deserved outcome of a hit single never materialised. Also, by 1983 there's a chance that the woozy New Wave sounds on display here were starting to feel a bit dated, and had it been released in 1981 when it was actually recorded, the outcome may have been different.

However, we are where we are.  The band seems to have packed it in shortly afterwards, and Phill Dunn moved on to become a film director in Singapore, still occasionally recording music with his new psychedelic rock inspired band Roxy Rejects.

Assuming this was Orphan's last release - and I can't find anything to suggest otherwise - it would seem as if they left the music business at least having given it their best shot.

Flavor - Dancing In The Street/ Comin' On Home

Label: Columbia

Year of Release: 1969

Sly and the Family Stone aren't discussed nearly enough these days in the discourse of music critics, and when they are I'm always left with the impression that some feel that they were a bit of a dead-end at the time, that nobody was doing anything similar.  In actual fact, both in the UK  and the USA, the rather restrictive term "soul rock" was briefly bandied around to describe all kinds of other artists who might conceivably be thrown into the same barrel.  Needless to say, none were as successful. 

The Washington-based Flavor were one such act who only managed three singles, of which this was their last.  Earlier in their career their approximation of soul had actually sounded frighteningly close to the Small Faces at times (check out "Heart-Teaser" on YouTube) but on this disc, you can hear something a bit closer to the roots than that, especially on the hand-clapping, gospel-inspired flip.

"Dancing In The Street" is a fantastic little rave-up, though, far better than Bowie and Jagger's later version in the eighties, and managing to bring some new ideas to the mix rather than being an imitation.  This rolls a lot more freely than the Martha and the Vandellas version, and while it's not the better option - I happen to think that the Vandella's effort is one of the best Motown sides going - it doesn't shame the original material at all.  You're left with the impression that Flavor could have had a decent career with the right push, but for whatever reason, that just didn't happen.

And who were they? If anyone knows, please get in touch.