Saturday, November 13, 2021

Newmadic - Newmadic (2001)

One of the difficulties I have with this blog is that I said I would only post things that aren't available anywhere else online. I think I have to go against that rule. I have lots of great rarities that I rip and I  intend to post but then I do a Google search and I find that the band has a presence on Amazon or YouTube or somewhere else online. I take the time to rip it and scan the covers and all of that but I feel like I shouldn't post it because it's already available somewhere else. 


The truth is that even if it is already available somewhere else you probably wouldn't know or even care. This blog is not about giving out free music. It's about informing you of bands that you might not have known about otherwise. So I'm breaking my own rules and I'm going to start posting whatever the hell I want regardless if it shows up in a Google search from a blog that stopped posting in 2012 or not. 


This post here is in honor of my old rules. I cannot find anything about this release or this band anywhere online. They are from New Jersey and this probably their only release. I would call it a straightforward rock and roll album. The last song is a rock-n-reggae song but the rest is just rock and roll.

1 Liquid Sunshine

2 No Reply

3 30 Moons

4 Your Way with Me

5 Karmic Bankruptcy

6 We ain't Done Yet

7 Spark Up the J

 

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Saturday, October 16, 2021

The Way - Strike to Win (1986)


 

This is a mod-with-horns band from Britain in the mid 80s. If you're a fan of Redskins you'll appreciate this band.

This is a very obscure tape that I know nothing about. I bought it off eBay many years ago and the seller told a bit about the band but I didn't retain any of that information except it was a tape that was given to Roddy Moreno. I don't know what his reaction to it was.

1 I Won't Give In

2 Underneath the Arches

3 War Hero

4 The Torch

 

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"Tel Sutton, The Way's frontman/songwriter here... someone linked me to the YouTube vid today, so, if you'd like, I can offer you something of an 'upgrade' to flac, with no dropouts.
'The Way' originally formed as a 'Mod Revival' band in December 1984, with the now well-respected music author, Tony Beesley, on rhythm guitar. We had a great time, particularly the night we played the Scarborough Scooter Rally (June 85), but Tony left November 85. This was because I'd wanted the stance to become far more politicised (living in Mexborough, we'd been right in the middle of the Miner's Strike) and Tony politely disagreed. I'd become mates with The Redskins and when they split at the end of 86 I was already trying to pick up the baton. I recruited three lads from the best local Colliery bands.
'Strike To Win' was the first of three E.P.s of original material we recorded between 86-88. A 3* review in 'Making Music', plus a full-page feature in the Morning Star newspaper, led to a call from Phil 'Porky' Jupitus - then a GoDiscs A&R man - which in turn led to Peter Jenner offering to help the band get gigs down in London. The 'Official Dispute E.P.' (1987) followed, and after a support slot with Attila The Stockbroker we seemed to become one of the go-to bands for doing benefits. We were always out of pocket, but boy did we have some laughs. We decided to go all out with the 'All Thy Might E.P.' (1988), Angelic Upstarts' Mond Cowie producing... him staying at my mum's and travelling back-and-forth to Fairview Studios every day was gruelling but brilliantly educational. That tape got us proper London management, and a step up; our most prestigious being with Joe Strummer on the 'Rock Against The Rich' tour, New Model Army's end-of-tour gig in Bradford, and the Mean Fiddler WITH Bradford (the band - with a great feature review in The Independent). Headlining the 'National Anti-Apartheid Conference' at Sheffield Octagon, Nov87, was the highlights. We were also on telly, twice!
Towards the end of 1988 we were joined by Tracie Young - fresh out of her Respond deal with PW - and despite lots of interest - plus an appearance on Yorkshire Television's 'Calendar' - attempts to get a label to back recording an album fell through and we dissolved in Jan 1990.

The Way's bassist, Jonathan White, stayed with me through the bands 'Speedway Kick' (90-92) and 'The On' (92-94), before rejoining with The Way's trombonist, Andy Cato, and going on to huge success with Groove Armada (then Faithless; also replaced Barry Adamson in Magazine for the 'No Thyself' comeback). We're all still good friends.

I'm currently finishing my latest band, 'Dada Baba's debut album... possibly the best thing I've done since my late-90s band, 'Electrascope' (which is basically is, minus our lead guitarist), and it should be out later this year.

Cheers for the interest, and for reading my post.
Tel."

 

Tel, if you read this, thank you for this background on the band. This is a hundred times more information than I was able to find anywhere online. 

I am very interested in those other recordings. If you have them you may want to consider uploading them to Bandcamp. Make the music available and maybe make a few quid along the way. You won't get rich, of course, but you might get enough for a decent lunch out of it. 

 

 

Thursday, August 19, 2021

The Accessories - The Accessory 7" (1982) -&- Vege's & Potatoes 12" (1982)

 



The Accessories was a post punk band from New Zealand that I know nothing about. They released a 7" and a 5-song EP in 1982 and then, as far as I know, they disappeared. The end.

I have the physical records but they are really rare and I didn't want to subject them to my scanner so I just stole the images from Discogs. Don't tell nobody. 

 

The Accessories - The Accessory 7" (1982)

A - The Accessory

B - Friday Night

 

The Accessories - Vege's & Potatoes 12" EP (1982)

1 Think Thin

2 Thieves in the Night

3 Festival

4 Into Your Mind

5 Doing it to Me

 

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Tuesday, July 27, 2021

The Howards - Pretty/Ugly EP (1994)


 This is a band from Chicago who played in the early 90s and they understood that grunge was the flavor of the day but they didn't go all into it. 

There are slight echoes of ska here and there, but there was no third wave at that time so the 'ska' sound would not appeal to a ska purist. There is a lot of surf-guitar influence as well. 

Their sound is not indescribable but I can't describe it. They had an album prior to this record that Discogs describes as "swing jazz" which I can say I don't believe even though I have never heard it.

 

1 Break Even

2 Frankie Machine Garden

3 Gulag

4 Bigfoot

5 Creepy Creepy  

This is the most grunge sounding song on the record. The rest of the record does not sound like this song.  

 

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Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Guava Groove - Who's That Girl? 7" (1987)


 

A1 - Who's That Girl

A2 - Liquor Lover

B1 - Fight! (We Got to Use what We Got to Get What We Want)

B2 - Boot Girl


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Friday, April 30, 2021

The G.T.'s - Boys Have Feelings Too 7" (1979)


Remember in the 80s when so many new wave bands were inspired by the sounds of the 50s and early 60s? One of the most influential band from the 60s that inspired a lot of 80s bands - mostly female artists - was the Shangri-La's. 

This band here is an early example of  how the sound of the Shangri-La's would shape the bands of the 80s.

This one record is all they recorded. It's 60's throwback with 80s new wave mixed in perfectly. Harmonizing female vocals with intermittent male vocals playing early 60's music with 80s instruments. 

 

A - Boys Have Feelings Too

B - Be Careful

 

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Sunday, April 18, 2021

Moira and the Mice


 Moira and the Mice wasn't really a punk rock band as much as they were a rock band from the punk era who came from Wales and I don't think they ever broke up. They might be playing a show this weekend for all I know. 

They had a lot of original tunes but only recorded a few of them. Six that I know of on these two records.

Here's a great song that they played live but didn't release on a record. 


 

Somebody posted a full show on YouTube (audio only) of a show they did at the Trubadour in Port Talbot in 1981.

Moira and the Mice - Sight and Sound 7" (1980)

A - Sight and Sound 

B - Gimme Pleasure


Moira and the Mice -  Hysterical Outbursts 7" (1981)

A1 - Hysteria

A2 - Heart Like a Whore

B1 - War Games

B2 - Playing for Time

 

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Friday, February 26, 2021

Second Language - In Shadows (1984)




 

Australian new wave/rock band with gothic leanings. This is probably the only thing they ever released.

1  In Shadows

2 On the Edge

3 Kashan

4 The Heart Becomes


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Thursday, February 4, 2021

Internationals - Hoots Mon 7" (1983) -and- It's Not Unusual 7" (1984)


 Case in point of my previous post where I said I don't understand good bands squandering their studio time for cover songs or trying to be funny. 

Watch this band live and see that they were entertaining and the frontman Neil Tomlinson was energetic and fun to watch and the band was capable of composing their own songs that people would want to hear.

They only put out these two records that I know of and neither one conveys the band properly. 

Did any of their fans actually want to hear them cover Tom Jones? 

 

The Internationals - Hoots Mon 7" (1983)

 A - Hoots Mon

B - Never Gonna Give You Up (not the Rick Astley song, I promise. I've never Rickrolled anybody in my life!)


The Internationals - It's Not Unusual 7" (1984)

A - It's Not Unusual

B - Headline News


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Sunday, January 10, 2021

The Method - Chances (1980) & The Method singles


 Studio time is expensive. It was really expensive in 1980. When I hear bands releasing records with cover songs (especially if it's a song that's been covered over and over again) or if they release a record of them just fucking around in the studio I can't help but think  "You have a whole band, you have a producer, and you have studio time - and this is what you did with it?? While there are so many talented bands that never get the opportunity to record in a studio and release a record on a label you were blessed with that gift and this is what you did with it??"

I listened to this record a few times before it dawned on me. This was an established talented band that could have made a good record but, in true punk rock fashion, they used this opportunity to say "fuck you" to the music industry instead. Including their own manager, producer, and record label. 

It's said that there were only 200 copies of this record made. There was a time in my life that I thought I would never own a copy myself because of how rare and expensive it is. 

I finally found a copy and the cover is in shameful condition. I honestly believe that someone pissed on it at some point in the last forty years or so.The record is not very good but I think it's all for good reason. This band could have been bigger but they were held back by the people that were supposed to make them big. They got screwed over. And they make that clear on this record. 

For being as rare as it is there are ten copies for sale on Discogs as I write this. And they are cheaper that what I paid for my copy. And I bet most of them have never been saturated in urine. 

I included two of the bands 7"s in this download to show what they really did sound like. They had 3 singles but both tracks from one of the singles is on the album so I didn't include that one. 


The Method - Chances (1980)

1 Snippets (live)

2 Circular Dreams (live)

3 Making Do (live)

4 Taking Liberties (live)

5 Over, Under, Sideways, Down (live)

6 The Biz

7 Little Lazers

8 Normally Abnormal

9 Poem - The Method Owed

10 Chances

11 Making Music Play

__________________________________________________


The Method - Kings on the Corner 7" (1977)

A - Kings on the Corner

B - Dynamo

________________________________________________


The Method - Taking Liberties 7" (1980)

A - Taking Liberties

B - The Pink Panther


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