Reissue CDs
Kieron Tyler
Quoted in an early music press article on his band Chapterhouse, singer-guitarist Stephen Patman said their ambition was “to have our records on sale in 20 years’ time. To leave something behind when we die." That was September 1990, in a piece tied-in to their soon-to-be-issued debut single.Setting aside the pessimistic proposal of a two-decade lifespan, the ambition has been achieved. And then some. White House Demos is a four-track, 12-inch EP collecting previously unheard demos the band recorded on 15 January 1989, by which point Chapterhouse had played only four live shows. His band’s Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Soul Scene,” by Echoes Limited, is built from elements of the James Brown sound. But it’s put together in such a way that the result is unfamiliar. The angular drum groove edges towards a 5/8 shuffle. The circularity of the guitar suggests Congolese rumba. Funk, but outside recognised templates.Then there’s “Anoshereketa” by Oliver & The Black Spirits. The swirling township structure is recognisable but the drums and the nature of the guitar playing – clipped and spindly, respectively – give an edge. This music is hard to place aesthetically and geographically.Add in the loping, reggae- Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Sixes and Sevens is a surprise. A big one. Since leaving Siouxsie and the Banshees in September 1979, John McKay has largely been a mystery. On record, the only suggestion this influential guitarist had continued with music was the EP his post-Banshees band Zor Gabor issued in 1987. Otherwise – nothing.Sixes and Sevens collects 11 tracks excavated by McKay from his personal archive. It is not an unreleased album. Three tracks are from 1980, three are from 1983, and there is one apiece from 1985, 1986 and 1987, and two from 1989. One of the 1983 tracks is titled “Zor Gabor” and, as well as Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The blurb on the front of the double-CD set The Hamburg Repertoire says it collects “The original recordings of songs performed by The Beatles on stage in Hamburg.” Disc One opens with Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally.” Disc Two ends with Chet Atkins’ version of the “Theme From ‘The Third Man’.”In between, 86 recordings of varying familiarity: from Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” and The Shirelles’ “Will You Love me Tomorrow” to lesser-known fare such as Duane Eddy’s “3.30 Blues” and Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps’ “Wedding Bells (Are Breaking up That Old Gang of Mine).”Hamburg and The Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It would have been hard to pick up a copy of the album credited to and titled 1001 Est Crémazie in 1975. Just 500 copies were pressed. It didn’t reach shops but was circulated amongst the musicians playing on it, their friends, families and fellow students at Montréal’s Collège André-Grasset, the school at which those on the album were pupils.As is the way with these types of thing, the privately pressed album was found by collectors and became sought after. The album’s final track “Bright Moments” reappeared on a DJ-targeted bootleg single in 2000 and then on 2002’s grey-area France and Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In October 1967, John Lee Hooker released a single titled “The Motor City is Burning.” The song commented on the civil unrest which had taken place in his Michigan home city of Detroit that July. “Oh, the motor city's burnin',” sang Hooker. “My home town burnin' down to the ground, Worser than Vietnam, Well, it started on 12th and Clairmont, this mornin'.”A couple of years on, Detroit’s MC5 released their version of “Motor City is Burning” (no “The”) on their debut album, the live set Kick Out The Jams. Now, the title is borrowed for the three-CD clamshell box Motor City Is Burning - A Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Stereo Instrumental Music was recorded in July 1976 and originally issued only on cassette. The release was organised by what was credited as the “Sun Shine Music Shop,” an enterprise which seems to have left no additional imprint. No further “Sun Shine Music Shop” albums are known.In contrast, Ibex Band, the outfit which recorded Stereo Instrumental Music, had a lineage outstripping that of the label which released the album. In 1975, they had issued an album and four related singles where they backed established vocalist Mahmoud Ahmed. They also backed Aster Aweke on one of her early albums Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The sticker on the front cover says “The heaviest proto-metal compilation ever released.” And considering the label behind Yeah Man, It's Bloody Heavy is Rise Above, founded by former Napalm Death and Cathedral frontman Lee Dorrian, this is not idle hubris.Yeah Man, It's Bloody Heavy collects 10 tracks which were not originally released (a bonus seven-inch with early copies of the LP takes it to 12 tracks). The first band heard are Birmingham’s Heavyboots. They are followed by Band Of Mental Breakdown (also known as B.O.M.B.), Macbeth Periscope, Agatha’s Moment, Jessica’s Theme, Greenfly, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The thrill of hearing “Crawdaddy Simone” never wears off. As the September 1965 B-side of the third single by North London R&B band The Syndicats, it attracted next-to no attention when it came out. The top side of the flop 45 was “On the Horizon,” a version of a Ben E. King B-side. After this, The Syndicats’ time seemed to have passed.Then, in 1982, a compilation album titled The Demention Of Sound turned up in shops. “Crawdaddy Simone” was on it, alongside tracks from singles by relatively well-known UK Sixties mod/R&B bands The Bo Street Runners (members of whom went on to Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
After scoring a hit in 1966 with the distinctive folk-pop of her jazz-inclined debut single "Walkin' my Cat Named Dog," US singer-songwriter Norma Tanega (1939–2019) seemed to melt away. Three follow-up 45s weren’t hits. Her album wasn’t a strong seller. Latterly, though, one of its tracks, “You're Dead,” has been heard as the theme of the TV and cinema versions of What We Do In The Shadows.There was, despite the lack of subsequent commercial success, a second album. I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile was recorded in the UK and issued in 1971. Sales were low and it ostensibly attracted Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
What happens after the spotlight is directed towards another target? In the case of Liverpool and the Merseybeat boom – which, in terms of chart success, peaked in 1963 – the question is addressed by Liverpool Sunset: The City After Merseybeat 1964–1969. The city’s musicians carried on, despite record labels looking elsewhere for the next big thing, and despite the Liverpool tag no longer ensuring an automatic interest.The final (identifiably) Merseybeat bands to debut on the charts were The Escorts, with “The One to Cry” in July 1964, The Undertakers, with “Just a Little Bit" in April 1964, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“German space rock group is already shooting up the charts with their debut US LP. One of few continental groups able to make this musical mode attractive in the US.” That, in full, in its 1 March 1975 issue, was US music business paper Billboard’s review of the single of Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn.”Three weeks later, with the single at 75 on its charts, Billboard went into it a little more. “With all the German avant-garde groups knocking vainly at US doors for the past five years, Kraftwerk is the first to make it. The extra ingredient appears to be the hypnotic prettiness of its synthesizer Read more ...