Second Hand Record Dip Part 36 - The Food Christmas EP

Who: Jesus Jones, Crazyhead and Diesel Park West

What: The Food Christmas EP

Label: Food

When: 1989

Where: Music and Video Exchange, Camden High Street

Cost: 50p

Say what you like about David Balfe, but nobody has anything much good to say about him.  The ex-Teardrop Explodes keyboard player has had plenty of mud slung at him in Julian Cope's fantastic biography "Head On", which painted the apparently "bug eyed" man as a cowardly, tantrum throwing, lisping sleazeball.  Even the Yorkshire Ripper gets better reviews than that.  

Once The Teardrop ceased to be, Balfe went on to music management, taking on Strawberry Switchblade (who also have absolutely nothing good to say about him here - enjoy those revelations about him persuading Jill Bryson to become Mike Read's boyfriend so their records got played on Radio One.  I suppose you've got to try).  Then he formed Food Records, with the somewhat Thatcherite slogan "Let us pray!", and eventually made millions signing Blur.  Who despised him, incidentally. 

It would be something of an overstatement to claim that Balfe hit the ground running with his label, however.  Many of his earliest signings such as Crazyhead, Diesel Park West and Brilliant seemed like peculiar choices for what was clearly supposed to be some sort of world-beating project, and unlike many of its competitors, the label did lack any sort of particular identity.  Crazyhead were dirty, filthy grebos who played basic rock and roll, Diesel Park West a slick, eighties modernised take on west coast psychedelia, and Brilliant an early Stock Aitken and Waterman project who made a few OK-ish singles before Jimmy Cauty went off to form the Jams and the KLF with Bill Drummond.  Only when Jesus Jones arrived did the label seem to have something going on, and even they had to wait some time for their first hit.

In short, I doubt there were many people out there who were fans of Food Record acts in the same manner that people collected Creation Records or Sarah Records issues, which makes this EP a little unusual.  It's a project where Food Records bands cover other Food Records bands, so we have Jesus Jones covering Crazyhead, Crazyhead covering Diesel Park West, and Diesel Park West covering Jesus Jones.  One can only assume that there was a cynical hope that fans of all the bands would go out and buy the record and it would chart highly - but this failed to occur, with the EP only managing one week at number 63.

This is definitely an interesting curio, though, but perhaps not as adventurous as it could be, and I suspect that's for a very simple reason.  Bands love messing up or recreating other bands songs, but they'd be extremely cautious about shitting on their own doorstep and offending their labelmates - so what you get here is some very cautious sounding cover versions.  The most interesting of the bunch is Diesel Park West doing a Byrdsian take on the messy "Info Freako" and removing the buzz, noise, samples and clutter from the original, and still making it sound like a good song.

Naturally, Balfe these days lives in a house, a very big house, in the country, and probably couldn't care less that the Blur number one in question is about him.  Whenever he appears on the television to be interviewed I expect to see a reptilian man with flashing red eyes on the screen, and instead observe an amiable bearded chap shuffling around jovially, which always seems like a surprise given his press.  I personally doubt that Balfe is worse than most music industry pundits, and it sometimes seems as if his biggest mistake was to allow himself to get too close to the musicians he was doing business with.  Unless, of course, you know differently...

Tracklisting:

1. Jesus Jones - I Don't Want That Kind of Love

2. Crazyhead - Like Princes Do

3. Diesel Park West - Info Freako

Download it here

The Higsons - I Don't Want To Live With Monkeys

Label: Romans in Britain

Year of Release: 1981

There have to be precious few examples of comedians who had careers - however minor - as singers prior to finding fame as "funnymen" (as the tabloid press still seem keen to quaintly describe them).  Billy Connolly is obviously one exceedingly rare example, but the hair, the beard, and the periodically airy mannerisms are actually easy pointers to a folky past.  If you didn't already know that Billy plucked mandolins merrily and previously graced the folk circuit, you probably wouldn't be amazed if you were told.  Charlie Higson off "The Fast Show" (above, you daft idiots) strikes me as being a less likely candidate in his previous job as a post-punk singer, purely because his comedy performances seem relatively understated, his characters slightly introverted and awkward.

Yet in the grand scheme of things, The Higsons were actually a bit of a cult sensation in the early eighties, racking up Channel Four appearances, playing major gigs in London, and even signing to Two Tone briefly.  That they are talked about so infrequently now probably has a lot to do with the fact that it's hard to take a band seriously who are not only fronted by a comedian, but actually named after him as well.  That's a pity, because they were actually far, far better than they had any right to be.  Frequently described as the English Talking Heads (although XTC were also hit with that particular comparison, and The Higsons and XTC don't sound much alike) they combined stinging horn riffs, happily slapped bass guitars, funky rhythms and hollering New Wave vocals with scattershot, self-consciously ridiculous lyrics.  Like post-punk and funk meeting the more dada elements of American psychedelia, they were simultaneously odd but somehow groovy as well, in a manner you get the sense a lot of the current rash of post-punk inspired bands would love to be, but neither have the wherewithal nor courage to achieve.  

Their debut single "I Don't Want To Live With Monkeys" rushed to number five in the indie charts, and the band found themselves becoming much talked about as part of an advancing "Norwich Scene", which aside from a few very minor Top 75 hits from The Farmers Boys amounted to nought in the end.  In short, The Higsons were never going to be big, and one gets the impression from this clip on Youtube outlining the scene that the bands were more bewildered by the media attention than inspired by it.  Still, a quick sniff of "I Don't Want To Live With Monkeys" proves that there was a pop sensibility going on somewhere in there - the track has a short, sharp insistence I actually find thrilling.

The Higsons split in 1986, and we all know what happened next - Charlie Higson went on to fame and fortune working with Harry Enfield, Vic Reeves, and Paul Whitehouse.  It's not a particularly unhappy ending for him at least, even if he only seems to mention The Higsons these days with a slightly embarrassed expression on his face, perhaps only too aware of how at odds the manic, barking figure on stage in the clip above is with his adult self.  Really, he should have a wee bit more pride in his work.   

Download the Track (from "The Indie Scene 1981") here

And "The Curse of the Higsons" appears to be on Spotify too.

Animals That Swim - Roy

Label: Beach Heads in Space

Year of Release: 1992

Of course, I've already written long blog entries on Animals That Swim, not least the one speculating that "I Was The King, I Really Was The King" might be one of the great lost albums of the nineties.  I've since had written communications from a few people which have convinced me that, for once, I may not be as wildly incorrect about that as I'm often seen to be.  You can mock blog entries which feature Rolf Harris, sixties session musos larking around or light orchestras all you want, but it would take a hard and cruel heart to not find something brilliantly moving about "Faded Glamour" at least.  "Left and to the Back" is not just there for the oddments in life, no, it's here for the great things too.

Way before they signed to a subsidiary of One Little Indian records, Animals That Swim were apparently a slightly chaotic act who gigged around London (occasionally amongst spoken word and poetry acts) and released occasional bits of vinyl on their own Beach Heads in Space record label.  "Roy" was one such issue, and focussed on the lead singer Hank Starrs encountering the bitter and disillusioned Roy Orbison in a pub.  "I thought that f__ker was dead!" he exclaims, before the Roy who is the focus of this song dedicates most of the rest of it to giving Elvis Presley a mighty dollop of disrespect.  "That Elvis was the dumbest shit I ever met", he sneers, citing examples of his lack of songwriting ability, idiocy, and general over-ratedness, almost all of which are viewed through the prism of extreme washed-up jealousy. "It should have been ME with the songs that I wrote", he spits in conclusion.

"Roy" relies on its lyrics and concept to drive the piece, the melody being stripped back and basic, lending the entire thing a dour air which almost recalls the work of the Liverpool Scene (the vehicle of poets Roger McGough and Adrian Henri) at the height of their sixties infamy.  

The B-side, however, is a deliberately Roy Orbison-styled song entitled "Weary Mind" which almost outshines the main event, being two and a half minutes of heightened melodrama, and proof that even at this early stage the band had a songwriting ability easily the equal of their more successful Camden peers.  When "Weary Mind" sways and soars its way towards the end like a low-budget indie torch ballad, it's almost impossible not to be impressed - there aren't many bands out there who would dare to attempt a parody of a songwriting style so sympathetically, never mind have the ability to actually pull if off.  

Unsurprisingly, the band got signed not long after this single was released, but you know the rest...  and it's dogged by indifference and misfortune.  Perhaps somewhere out there Hank Starrs is propping up the bar in a London pub ranting about how Pete Doherty isn't as good an urban poet as he was*.  He could be forgiven, and he wouldn't be far wrong.

Download it Here

(*although as a footnote, I would like to make the slightly contentious point that some of Pete Doherty's actual poetry isn't all that bad).

Kes Wyndham - Honey Call Me Home (b/w "Broken Bicycle")

Label: Pye

Year of Release: 1971

"The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles...when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones."

Flann O'Brien "The Third Policeman"

I freely admit that I have absolutely no idea whether or not Kes Wyndham's wistful "Broken Bicycle" tune is inspired by Flann O'Brien's bike-obsessed police officers in the "Third Policeman" novel.   However, lyrically it certainly seems to have several key pointers - "We were one body of flesh and of steel" he sings mournfully, whisking the listener away into a hellish, surreal world where men may become methods of two wheeled transportation at any time.

It has to be said, "Broken Bicycle" is a rum little piece of work, being a subtly orchestrated ballad about the end of one woman's love affair with her jilted Raleigh.  It comes drenched in the slightly twee, pie-eyed melodies of the sixties despite its 1971 release date, and was considered good enough to work its way on to the Ripples series of compilation albums (volume three - "Autumn Almanac").  Sadly, there is no information about who Kes Wyndham was or what else he did in the booklet, which is usually the compiler's polite way of sidestepping the issue that nobody has the slightest clue.  I certainly don't either, but if the possibility of some royalties cheques can't smoke Mr Wyndham out of his hole, I sorely doubt I mention on this blog will.  Still, Kes - if you happen to chance on this entry, please let us know what else you got up to.

The A-side "Honey Call Me Home" is less pleasing, being a rather middle-of-the-road ballad lacking a sufficient hook.  I've included it in the download so people can satisfy their curiosities.  I doubt anybody would have had more luck with this single if they'd flipped the sides around, since "Broken Bicycle" is far too subtle to crash the charts, but it might possibly have established Kes Wyndham as an interesting artist to watch.  

Download it Here

 

Second Hand Record Dip Part 35 - String Driven Thing - Mrs O'Reilly

Who: String Driven Thing

What: Mrs O'Reilly (b/w "Keep On Moving")

Label: Charisma

When: 1974

Where: Music and Video Exchange, Camden High Street

Cost: One pound

I freely and fully admit that (just for once) I'm going to come across like an ignorant pig-boy here, since before picking up this single in Camden I hadn't really ever given String Driven Thing much thought - never heard one of their albums, songs, or pondered greatly upon their rather peculiar name.  Nobody I knew had ever mocked them or recommended them to me.  They were just there. 

I've investigated a little further since, and it would seem that the band was a complete confusion, starting life as a folk ensemble in 1967, then shifting to a folk-rock medium in the seventies so they could scrape their jolly fiddles passionately in a proto-Waterboys type way, then losing so many musicians that they only had one original member left by the tail end of their careers. Key member Grahame Smith buggered off to join Van Der Graaf Generator, for example, and on iTunes some of the String Driven Thing tunes are labelled "Grahame Smith of Van Der Graaf Generator with String Driven Thing" which seems rather harsh.

Their career was apparently sidelined when one of their main members Chris Adams was hospitalised with a collapsed lung shortly before they were due to support Genesis on tour.  With no proper tour to bouy up support of their records, they remained rather underground, a situation they never quite recovered from despite numerous attempts.  

From what I can gather, "Mrs O'Reilly" stems from the poppier end of their career, and has a certain degree of Steve Harley-esque quirk and bounce going on in its grooves, but never really quite catches fire.  It's a jolly listen, but for my ears is marred by the presence of a saxophonist who insists on playing the same melody as the vocalist is singing.  I've always found saxophones to be rather trying in almost all pop songs, but when they're shoved so prominently to the front it's always going to subtract a certain something.

There's little doubt that some of the noises in "Mrs O'Reilly" are endearing, though, and the band probably deserved better than to support Lou Reed the next year and get booed off stage by his unforgiving fans.  

They're still going today and gigging around the country under the name "String Driven", and seem to have a cult following who hold them in some regard.   So there you go.   Apologies for the vagueness, but the second hand record dip section of this blog is prone to it from time to time.

Download it here