AD 2,000 - Rhythm and Chips/ Don't Play The Disco

Analogue synth instro on tiny Nottingham indie label

Label: Eagle

Year of Release: 1980

Another puzzler to add our long logbook of vinyl mysteries, I'm afraid. This is a peculiar double A side which features a buzzing, burbling analogue synth instrumental on one side - which is obviously the aspect which caused me to part with my pocket change - and a despondent crying-in-the-late-night-taxi-home slow rock ballad on the other, which is probably fine if that's your kind of thing. (The "Late night FM radio sad taxi journey home" sound is an entire sub-genre in itself, in my opinion, albeit one that's unlikely to ever become as popular as Yacht Rock). 

More perplexingly, though, neither side sounds very eighties. The twittering analogue synths on "Rhythm and Chips" sound like a product of the previous decade, while "Don't Play Me No Disco" belongs to that unnamed genre of records which could have fitted in neatly alongside Sad Cafe's "Every Day Hurts" on a K-Tel compilation for men having a moment. 

My best guess is that both these sides were recorded a couple of years earlier before finally getting picked up by the Nottingham indie label Eagle in 1980, by which point they were slightly out of step with the public mood. That didn't stop the single getting another issue in 1982, though, when the label's name was changed to Ash to presumably avoid confusion with a larger Eagle under operation at the same time. Once again, though, public interest in the track seemed low.

Both tracks are credited to Jake Rebel who I can only assume was an associate of the British country singer Stu Stevens who owned Eagle Records and Studios in the Nottingham area. If he ever released anything else, I'm damned if I can find it.

Assumptions rule the day this time round, I'm afraid. 

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