Injun Jo - Feel The Rhythm Inside/ Jawbone

Label: York Records

Year of Release: 1973

We've already (briefly) explored the career of Miki Anthony on this blog back when I uncovered a Mark Wirtz produced acetate of "Knight In White Armour", and this particular disc stems from a later part of his career when he found himself working for York Records, a subsidiary of Yorkshire Television.  

The A-side offers nothing unusual in the slightest, and is in fact a particularly sprightly piece of pop which was unlucky not to have been a hit.  "Feel The Rhythm Inside" has clattering drums, bass piano notes, an euphoric chorus and a general sense that all is well on the suburban dancefloor.  There's nothing radical or original about it, but it's a serviceable example of a particular strain of non-glam pop music that was faring reasonably well in Britain at the time.

Far more absurd is the B-side which can only be described as a country/ trucking song sung by daleks, or at the very least Miki Anthony doing a very good impersonation of a dalek.  The story behind this, so far as I can ascertain, is also a bit odd.  Earlier in 1973 York Records had slated a record for release by a group called The Daleks entitled "Feel It Inside" with "Jawbone" listed as the flip.  Copies of this have never actually been seen, and the qualified guess of most record collectors (and Doctor Who collectors) is that somebody at the Yorkshire media company got jittery about copyright violation and getting into trouble with the BBC.  This would have applied even if the single were issued on a standard record label, but one with close affiliations to their rival station ITV would surely have come in for a giant whacking from the legal beagles.  Whether "Feel It Inside" was a different version of this A-side sung in the voice of a dalek, the same track or another track entirely is impossible to say, and chances are only Miki Anthony or an ex-employee of York Records would be likely to know.  

Whatever the facts, the B-side is a right old racket, and the humorous novelty factor of daleks trucking across the country exterminating quickly loses its appeal.  It's bizarre, make no mistake, but has all the hallmarks of an off-the-cuff flip side, which is a shame given the potential of the idea.  

Miki - Knight In White Armour/ Easy To Say

Label (when finally released): RCA
Year of Release: 1969

We took a quick look at Mark Wirtz's recording career back in June, focussing primarily on his "Teenage Opera" project which - it's fair to say - has overshadowed just about everything else he's done.  Wirtz did also attempt other commercial projects such as children's songs and straightforward attempts at pop (such as the single by Peanut we've already discussed) although none were ever really quite so ambitious as his tales of runaway trains and weak-hearted grocery store owners.

His flair for quality production work never subsided, however, and he saw out the rest of the sixties and the early seventies trying to score radio-friendly hits.  Whilst I'm drawing an utter blank on the identity of the performer Miki in this case (although the person who sold this to me suspected it may be the songwriter Miki Dallon, which I somewhat doubt) the work itself has the usual bright and theatrical detail you'd expect from something with Wirtz's name attached.  The first thirty seconds of this sound eerily like an eighties Marc Almond record, in fact, to the extent that I did briefly wonder if I'd been ripped off - the bleak lyrics, melodrama and West End stage enunciation of the lyrics is pure post-Soft Cell camp.  Whilst it never quite sparks into life as much as the verses seem to threaten, this is a brassy and likeable single with a little dash of popsike in its grooves.

Obviously the record didn't do big business when it was issued on RCA, although as I've never heard the official release I would be interested to know if this acetate contains any differences to the final version, as what I have here could be an incomplete edit or early master.  If anyone can help, please do leave a comment.  'Scuse the pops and clicks on the record.

Eagle-eyed readers will spot that the 363 Oxford Street address on the acetate label tallies with the HMV store's old location, meaning that either Wirtz or another studio representative will have nipped into their pressing facilities at the shop to get an acetate cut for promotional purposes.  This was the very same service Brian Epstein used to cut copies of The Beatles Decca demos, which George Martin later found out about from a HMV engineer who worked there - but that, my friends, is an entirely different story from a different time, and has little to do with the matter in hand.