Jumbo - Brighten Up/ H.O.N. Honey

Label: Bright Orange Biscuit
Year of Release: 1999

"It was inevitable, really, as pop music choked on stale dadrock pie, that we'd soon turn to some evanescent psychedelic sorbets to clean the palate..." - so began the NME's review of Jumbo's only album "CB Mamas" back in 1999. During the tail end of the nineties, there was a belief in some critical quarters that now the guardians of the gates of the adult rock library Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller had decided to allow the likes of Ocean Colour Scene unlimited access (even on early closing Wednesdays) to pilfer riffs, music had to go in a lopsided direction to remain fresh. If they didn't think that the Super Furry Animals, Mercury Rev and Olivia Tremor Control were showing us the way, there was a belief that perhaps post-rock may be the future instead. Some are inclined to argue that it was at this point that the mainstream music press "lost its way" - personally, I believe it was just beginning to get back on track again, but lost its bottle pretty swiftly. A pre-Britpop NME would never have given a shit about whether their critical praise actually translated into platinum sales, and the fact that many of the above mentioned bands failed to become the next U2 or Oasis shouldn't have been the main criteria for excluding them from the magazine in the long term.

Whatever - there's now precious little information about Jumbo available, which is surprising for a band who emerged as the Internet had just begun to get seriously whirring, and also had NME CD compilation appearances (on the NME's 1999 "On" freebie). From my utterly inaccurate memory where "citation needed" shall be our guiding catchphrase, they were actually extremely young (possibly teenage) musicians from Newcastle who did indeed compose a pack of confusing, lysergic and staggering ditties, with wild horns, scattering guitar lines, beserk time signatures and hollered vocals. Their products owed a lot more to the US underground than (for example) The Super Furries or Gorky's Zygotic Mynci were producing at the same time, but were intriguing and actually quite awkward records. Whereas Gorky's were engaging in English pastoral whimsy and silliness, Jumbo sounded like a competition between a youth club orchestra as to who could hold dominance over a song's direction or mood. Both "Brighten Up" and "H.O.N. Honey" are uneasy listening, but a lot of fun if you're in the right frame of mind.

Sadly, I'm also forced to agree with the NME's reviewer's sentiments about Jumbo seldom transcending the sum of their influences, but across seven inches they did make a nice noise. One is forced to wonder what became of the pups, and whether they're in bands now producing equally interesting material. It's an odd question to ask of a band who ceased trading a mere ten years ago, but sometimes acts do seem to slip off the radar very quickly indeed.

Break

I'm working out of Glasgow for the next week, and I don't even want to begin to kid myself that I'm going to attempt an update in that time. Even in the event that I did bring some mp3s and vinyl rips with me, chances are I wouldn't get the time to do anything with them.

I'll hopefully see you again around this time next week, at which point this blog should start to become more active again.

Dave Howard Singers - Yon Yonson

Label: Hallelujah
Released: 1987

If I were forced to pick any song from the last thirty years which managed to seep into the public consciousness despite never becoming even a Top Hundred hit, this would surely be it. I've already summarised the career of the Dave Howard Singers here, but this was the moment when they managed to get the attention of British schoolchildren and their irritated parents.

"Yon Yonson" reached number four in the British Indie charts, a lofty position which meant it received multiple plays on Channel Four's "Chart Show" on Friday evenings. The idea - simply repeating the endless 'Yon Yonson' nursery chant to from intro to fade - meant that a brief snippet of it was all the average listener would need to hear before it became permanently welded into their brains.

I know people who utterly detest this song, and it's easy to understand why. Its insistence could easily be infuriating to those of an easily agitated disposition. However, I actually like it - it builds impressively as it progresses, starting out as a novelty piece of pseudo-hip hop and then screeching, snarling and groaning to its beatbox driven conclusion. It's simultaneously stupid and bold, rhythmically stripped back but somehow danceable, and makes the most of its very limited template.

The degree of public exposure it received was doubtless helped no end by the fact that this was a very early example of an 'acceptable' indie video. If they even bothered to embrace the concept at all, so many indie bands of this period produced promo videos which seemed as if they'd been directed by a toddler with a Super 8 whilst high on Nerds, or looked like they had the production qualities of a bad holiday home movie - the fact that this, for all its simplicity, followed some of the basic rules of music video presentation (such as holding the camera steady from time to time) assured it got coverage. In fact, it wasn't even in the Indie Top 10 for one of the Chart Show's Chart File Updates but they still played it, proof that the show's producers had a certain amount of faith in both the video and track.

The Dave Howard Singers recently reformed for shows in Toronto, and released a compilation of their EP tracks in Canada. I can only hope it works its way over to Britain soon - I really want a copy.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 28 - Mike Conway - Reign of King Sadness

Who: Mike Conway
What: Reign of King Sadness (b/w "I'm Gonna Get Me A Woman")
Label: Plexium Records
When: 1968
Where: Reckless Records, Soho (RIP)
Cost: 50p

I've said before that the reduced boxes and bins of your average second hand record store usually have a fair few sixties solo artists nesting amidst the novelty pop, three hit wonders and rejected promotional singles. The musical history books have been particularly poor at recording the comings and goings of these lone rangers unless they were folk artists - and even then, there are some shocking gaps in everybody's knowledge.

If there's any information out there about Mike Conway at all, I can't find it. On the evidence of this recording, though, he sounds like a middle of the road supper club character who obviously didn't find enormous success. "The Reign of King Sadness" is a celebratory ballad about the end of bleak times which is really quite wearisome despite its good intentions, and it's the B-side in all its "You couldn't get away with that now!" glory that I'm really interested in. "I'm Gonna Get Me A Woman" is a bold declaration of intent where, with a joyful, brassy orchestral backing, Conway assures us "I'm gonna get me a woman, yes sir/ I think that each guy should/ but I ain't gonna marry no gal/ unless she can cook real good". The year might have been 1968, and such thoughts may have already become desperately passe and offensive to some, but the mainstream of pop carried on churning out these feminist baiting lyrical corkers for years to come (as also evidenced in Moments and Whatnauts' hit "Girls" in the seventies). There's a bounce to "I'm Gonna Get Me A Woman" I find enticing, and a distinct tone of wrongness about the lyrics which seems amusing now. The confidence in Conway's voice is a noise to behold - you can imagine him skipping down the street singing the song.

What became of the chap is anybody's guess. A search around the Internet reveals that this man here is a sixty year old singer from South Wales, which would seem to be about the right age, but there seem to be multiple Mikes in circulation, including an Indy racing car driver, a voiceover artist and musician based in the States, and the manager of Australian kid-pop band The Wiggles. Place your bets, please.

Of equal interest is the production credit for David Balfe, which I can only assume isn't David Balfe out of the Teardrop Explodes unless he was some kind of studio prodigy, and the fact this came out on Plexium Records, a very early independent label which failed to take on the might of the majors, but is now extremely collectible. Judging by the catalogue number, this looks like it may have been their first release.

Denim - Novelty Rock

Label: Emidisc
Year of Release: 1997

"We've not been going very long/ we've only written one good song/ here it is, we will play/ it's the best song that we've got it's called/ INTERNET CURTAINS!/ Now we've got ourselves a hit/ 'cos Chris Evans played it/ every day, on his show/ I thank the Lord for a song called/ INTERNET CURTAINS!"

When Lawrence Hayward broke up Felt after ten years and ten albums, all eyes were on him for the next move. Felt had specialised in making a very unique and occasionally genuinely beautiful kind of alternative pop, all of which remains on catalogue to this day (so will never be uploaded to this blog). The twists and turns they took, however, confused even their biggest fans, producing instrumental jazz tinged albums as well as moments of tranquil wonder such as "The World is as Soft as Lace", and Bob Dylan influenced low budget, high treble indie pop like "Ballad of the Band". Not all of it was great, but it was at least never anything less than interesting, and when they hit their peaks, by God, they left you wondering why they were simply a "cult band". Go away and buy "Primitive Painters" now if you're wondering what I'm talking about. All bands should be kept on a long leash if it allows them to achieve similar sparkles in the long run.

When Denim finally emerged in the nineties, Lawrence appeared to have spent some considerable time contemplating how terrible and unkind the eighties had been, and his new band seemed to be suggesting that we'd all be much better off pretending the decade never happened. He hooked up with ex-members of the Glitter Band, produced odd promotional items such as guitar plectrums shaped like the logo for the Bell record label (home to glam rock and bubblegum pop for most of the much-maligned seventies), wrote songs such as "I'm Against The Eighties", and produced a debut album in "Back in Denim" which, whilst imperfect, overflowed with ideas and amidst its kitsch leanings appeared to be making some heartfelt points. Plenty presumed that it was a one-off project and he'd move on to some other idea - however, this was not to be, and further work followed.

As the nineties progressed, Denim appeared to be getting less and less consistent, and whilst their "Denim on Ice" album isn't wholly bad, the straitjacket of the concept did seem to be taking its toll on Lawrence. Felt could be anything and everything they wanted to be - Denim were always in thrall to glitter and glam and novelty pop, and it was hard to see what further points they could make.

Shortly after that album was put out, an album of "odds and sods" was issued, namely "Novelty Rock". Featuring "Mouldy old songs and some new 'uns", "Novelty Rock" doesn't pretend to be anything other than a compilation of B-sides, one-off singles and a few new ideas. Almost all the tracks have a cheap and cheerful novelty shine to them, like two minute Internet virals given their own audio space (in fact, the opening track "We Are The New Potatoes" - one of the most ridiculous and hilarious things ever committed to vinyl - eventually became the soundtrack to one). For a compilation, it has a surprisingly consistent sound of cheap synth noises - I'm sure the Commodore 64 SID chip is in full effect in numerous places here - repetitive catchphrases, and, as detailed in the lyrics quoted above, some fairly sharp satire.

The central problem with the whole idea, and possibly the point too, is that you'll never bother to play it more than a few times before tiring of the jokes and the relatively limited arrangements. It is throwaway, but I doubt it was ever meant to be anything else.

So then - if you're thinking of using this album as a starting point for discovering about Denim, please think again. The debut "Back in Denim" is widely available and much more worthy. If you want a quick cheap thrill and a few chuckles, however, "Novelty Rock" is certainly worth a listen, and I don't think fans of Lawrence should look the other way either.

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Tracklisting:

1. The New Potatoes
2. On a Chicory Tip
3. Robin's Nest
4. Internet Curtains
5. Snake Bite
6. Ape Hangers
7. The Great Grape Ape Hangers
8. Ankle Tattoos
9. Tampax Advert
10. Supermarket (originally released on Ice Rink records under the name "Supermarket")
11. Running in the City
12. I Will Cry at Christmas