Up Yaws ("Fucking Cunt/Awkward Bastard") anonymous comedy 12" - the revival!

[weekender]

Gosh, this is exciting.

I sense a slight amount of sarcasm from you here, but this is genuinely my favourite thread ever, and I love reading every single development.  I love the fact that it was probably prompted from a separate discussion about Blue Jam.

I love the fact that people keep on trying, and they should.

Back in the early days of this very board I mentioned a song to TJ I was trying to find, which I was convinced was by the Railway Children.  He didn't know what it was.  Eight years later - by sheer coincidence - I found out that the song was called 'Railway Children' but it was by a band called Bedazzled.

Obviously my first thought was to let TJ know, and I could sense his sheer excitement at my 8-year journey because he sent me a PM in response, the gist of which was: "Cool, glad you found out", and his acknowledgement of the extent of my quest was awesome and gave me hope that quests that are similar in nature - such as the one in this thread, will eventually lead to fruition and similar excitement by anyone associated with the quest.  It's awesome!  Everything is awesome[nb]weekender may or may not have recently rewatched the Lego Movie[/nb]!  This thread is awesome!  YOU'RE awesome[nb]Apart from biggytitbo, who is a cunt[/nb]!

I am genuinely hoping that Goldentony follows through here[nb]I make it too easy sometimes.[/nb]

[QDRPHNC]

I sense a slight amount of sarcasm from you here

Nope, no sarcasm at all. It's been a great read, and felt a bit like watching Zodiac a wee bit.

[great_badir]

Wow, what a blast from the past!

This went round my school in the early 90s, almost like a porn video.

No more to add really, but the consensus amongst a few people there who knew quite a lot about music was that it might've had some involvement from one or more of The Snowmen (famous for the Hokey Cokey/Don't Go Short 45 in the early 80s), who themselves have a similar air of mystery about them, but I'm not sure if that was just a guess because "it sounded a bit like them", or if it was based on anything more concrete.

Hokey Cokey:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzQ9K7-J_PM

Don't Go Short:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkx686-C34k

[weekender]

Nope, no sarcasm at all. It's been a great read, and felt a bit like watching Zodiac a wee bit.

To be fair to me[nb]This doesn't often happen, I'm usually bullied by people on this forum[/nb], you can see how a comment like "Gosh, this is exciting" could be taken the wrong way, surely :)

[Ambient Sheep]

...it was probably prompted from a separate discussion about Blue Jam.

Indeed it was.

[steveh]

In a weird coincidence, after 20 years of trying to track down a track used as the theme tune to a mid-eighties pirate radio station I finally located it last year and it turned out to by a Dramatis B-side.

This interview suggests they're planning on re-releasing their stuff: http://www.electricity-club.co.uk/lost-albums-dramatis-for-future-reference/.

[hedgehog90]

I've just read this from start to finish - wow!
Are there any old mystery-investigative threads on CaB like this? I found it fascinating and I want more.

The only working link for the song I could find was the YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&v=hVTf5EpIItQ&hl=en-GB
Has anybody still got the 'remastered' wav/320 version? I'd like to add it to my official collection of weird shit.

[Chriddof]

I have the 320 mp3 and I've just uploaded it here:

https://www.mediafire.com/?zb2bbmypp7y1lhq

Hope that works.

[SimonCG]

Good evening all!

Thought I'd drag this thread out of obscurity and log another copy of the record.

I've recently dug through my late fathers collection and found this. It has the black sticker as show before and one side is void of content.

I've read the whole thread so wanted to let everyone know another copy exists! My dads friend might know some details about it as I think I remember dad once talking about this. If my memory serves me he said there was very few copies produced, 10? Think he said it was recorded by a band as a warm up kind of exercise.

I'll ask My dads friend if he knows more as he's a DJ and almost certainly gave or lent him this track.

Simon

[Goldentony]

Good to know literally anything else about this, the furthest we got was a semi confirmation from one of Numan's ex backing band and when I looked it turned out i'd asked that about ten years ago, tried to nudge a few times since but nothing. Suspect it might be either a sore subject or just old shit nobody wants to touch given the possible topic. Do let us know though!

[Ambient Sheep]

Good evening all!

Thought I'd drag this thread out of obscurity and log another copy of the record.

Hiya Simon and welcome aboard!  Sorry to hear about your Dad though.

If my memory serves me he said there was very few copies produced, 10?

I'd be surprised if that were true, given that my local record shop had five, two of which I bought myself:

Indeed it does.  Parrot[t?] in Harlow had more than one, by the way.  As soon as I heard it, I went out and bought another copy from them, and I got the impression they still had a few more on the shelf behind the counter; something in my head's saying they had five in total.  In any case the sleeve stayed in the rack for a few months afterwards, so it wasn't just a bizarre one-off or even two-off.

Also, pressing in such tiny quantities would have been incredibly uneconomic.  Minimum orders at pressing plants were usually 500 or 1000, if I remember correctly.

On the other hand, so few people seem to have heard of this that maybe it was just 50 or 100 as a special order.

Shocking if 10 is true though, maybe just five in each of two shops, then?!  Let's hope your Dad's mate can shed some more light.

Also, I've always thought it might be an interesting thing to run past Record Collector magazine.

[Beep Cleep Chimney]

No additional news on who's actually behind this single,  but thought I might as well just mention that I put up a video on YouTube a while back of a rip of my own vinyl copy of it.  (Only put it up so that there was a version on there with better audio quality). I put a link to this thread in the comments under the video, and a link to the original CaB YT upload).

Anyway, it had been up for a few months with no issues, but then suddenly noticed that I'd been hit with a copyright claim against the video.

Wasn't made to take it down or anything, but it turns out that the backing track they used for the Up Yaws/Dedicated To_ _ _ _ _ single was essentially taken wholesale from a fairly obscure old track by soul group The Tymes called 'Promises'.

It's this, basically.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVy0M8BnPd0

I quite like the Tymes track, but you can't help just singing the Up Yaws lyrics to it now.

[Famous Mortimer]

Glitch!

[Darles Chickens]

This thread's too good to let it rot, but sorry for the anticlimactic bump all the same, no there's no full confession from Rrussell Bell here or anything else.

But I was curious about BCC's track above, so I had a listen and was startled by the similarity - it's a rather different musical arrangement, but structurally (and rhythmically) it's identical.  So I tried to find out more about the track - and "obscure" is an understatement - but I wouldn't be surprised if Promises was ripped wholesale from Up Yaws, not the other way round.  First appearance I can find of it on their discogs.com discography is from a 1990 BBC compilation called Soul Gems, and then a further one on a 2003 compilation called The Unforgettable (lol) Music of The Tymes.  The instrumentation has some real 80s twists, including what sounds very much like a DX7 electric piano and that plinky plonky squarewave synth at 1:56, and the drum production just sounds "of the 80s"; the intention is clearly to evoke a 70s aesthetic, but I feel like it's not a 70s record.



Anyone feel like stepping up to the task of trying to identify Chris Staines / Keith Hodge / Ballantine?  Are they plagiarising chancers, or the original brains of the composition?  I couldn't find anything on discogs which links those three names on anything else.

I feel like this adds another curious dimension to what is already a very curious record with an intriguing story.  I mean, there's no way this similarity is a coincidence, so which really came first?  Why is Promises so utterly obscure and absent from The Tymes' extant body of work pre-1990?  How did BCC get a copyright claim when the arrangement and recording of the Tymes track is different?  Doesn't add up.  Nope.

[Ambient Sheep]

Fascinating!

[Leee]

Jesus, was this 13 years ago? I must be getting on a bit.

Well I missed out on the Dramatis "confirmation" before, so well done to all concerned. I'd feel satisfied with that. But the Tymes connection is fascinating. No idea how to help with that particular rabbit hole, but for those about to venture, I salute you.

I still play this on the rare occasions I'm asked to DJ by someone who's never asked me before (and never will again). Goes down a treat every time.

I never did hear back from Andy of 's Records fame.

[Goldentony]

yeah sorry just to add yer man never got back to me about this properly so I didnt want to do his head in, quite recently too, I also messaged Tik & Tok but got nothing. The Tymes thing is mad though! might be worth a look

[Darles Chickens]

The plot somewhat thickens, or at least simmers gently on low heat.

I found this scan of a foreword in the CD inlay for Soul Gems, written by Edwin Starr, because why not:

Meantime Soul Gems gives us fifteen never before released tracks from the great years and whether a committed fan or newcommer [sic] to the music of The Tymes, you'll delight in these great sounds.

So, in 1990, Promises had never before been released.  Meaning, either it was already years old and whoever was behind Up Yaws somehow heard a bootleg of Promises long before it had ever been released, and decided to borrow the music for their novelty record.  Or perhaps Promises was stolen from the Up Yaws gang by a bunch of pseudonymous chancers who figured no one would ever hear a limited pressing 12" of obscenities set to smooth jazz.  Or maybe Staines/Hodge/Ballantine are the musicians behind both tracks.  Were The Tymes even in any way known in the underground soul/funk scene (!) in the 80s? - feels like a stretch.

It's definitely the same song, in the same key, with the same distinctive rhythmic phrasing, but with a different musical arrangement and somewhat different chords in places.  And different lyrics of course.  It's all very bizarre.

I'm inclined to think Staines/Hodge/Ballantine were a bunch of session musicians with a song who were trying to find the right artist to record it, and that artist was, er, The Tymes.  Great choice lads, this time next year you'll be millionaires.  And meanwhile they used it for themselves to record "Dedicated to _____", and put it out quietly and anonymously for their own fun.

So who are Staines/Hodge/Ballantine?  Chris Staines -> Chris Payne (Dramatis)?  Straw clutching much?

[lazyhour]

If it helps:

It wouldn't have been too unusual in the mid-to-late 80s for British session musicians to be churning stuff out for 60s and 70s American soul musicians. Ian Levine and his ilk brought several former stars over from the US and recorded hundreds of new tunes with them. That might explain why a track on a 1990 Tymes comp sounds so very similar to a weird British novelty release.

[Darles Chickens]

Thanks for that! Yes, it seems like it was something that happened back then.

Last bit of circumstantial evidence:

Searching for Keith Hodge on discogs led me to a 1980 album by The Softrock on which he played drums.  In the album notes, it states "Produced by the Songwriters Workshop Limited".  Search for that, and what comes up, lo and behold - only a million references to Gary Numan, Dramatis and Tubeway Army.

So I think the connection is established, and Promises was surely an early (maybe circa 1978-80) rendition of a composition which was later "developed" into Dedicated To, by the same writers / musicians. 

So, Keith Hodge on drums.  Didn't someone mention in this thread (10 years ago) that they knew the drummer, or something?

[Beep Cleep Chimney]

Sterling work, Darles.

[Darles Chickens]

Thanks to you for the Promises lead!  How did you find it - did the copyright claim link directly to that song?  Really weird that the algorithm identified them as the same thing - I've seen people avoid copyright strikes by using cover versions, which are still more likely to sound like the original than this case.

I was searching for Keith Hodge, and found a drummer from Llanelli, who was active around the right kind of time, who sadly passed away a number of years ago.

So maybe Chris Staines is the next one to try to contact, it might be this guy, a producer/bass player who's worked with some big names.  I also found him linked to Ian Levine in some project or other!

ETA: I found Chris on Facebook and PM'd him, so we'll see if anything comes of that.

[Beep Cleep Chimney]

Thanks to you for the Promises lead!  How did you find it - did the copyright claim link directly to that song?  Really weird that the algorithm identified them as the same thing - I've seen people avoid copyright strikes by using cover versions, which are still more likely to sound like the original than this case.

The video had been up for a little while but then I suddenly got an e-mail notification one day saying about the copyright claim.  Think the e-mail gave the name of the song, artist and the supposed copyright holder.  When I go into that video now on my channel feed, it just shows this...

[kaprisky]

It's of no consequence now but the Tymes comp got a mention here:

Cheddar Valley Gazette (and other Somerset papers), 16/08/90: (extract)

Summer Sounds
Three summer albums released on BBC records should have a few people thinking back to the last couple of decades.
...
The Tymes, who enjoyed popularity in the 70s with hits like Ms Grace and You Little Trustmaker, release an album called Soul Gems which features fifteen previously unreleased Tymes tracks from this era.

Promises is probably an outtake from the 70s. The papers probably nicked that info from the liner notes but that's its only mention in the press.

[Darles Chickens]

My guess is that it was recorded sometime around 1978-80.  The last two tracks were probably recorded in the same session (note the same George Williams / Chris Staines production credit).  The writers of the penultimate track worked together in The Alan Ross Band in 1978, and Chris Staines was apparently active from around '79.  My guess is they recorded these tracks around this time and shelved them for whatever reason (The Tymes by this point seems to have just become a vehicle for George Williams).  And then, some years later, they dug it out the vault, developed it some more, and reimagined it as Up Yaws.

Anyway all of this is very well, but it doesn't get us any closer to knowing who's singing AWWWWKWAAARD BAAASTAAARD, or why they even decided to do it at all.

[Minami Minegishi]

If this is connected to Numan, it might be worth tapping into the encyclopedic knowledge of Stanwell contemporary, and photographer to the stars, Mick Mercer.

[Goldentony]

great work Darles and co on this, very excited again

[buzby]

Listening to The Tymes' Promises, I would put that being recorded around the same time as Up Yaws was released (the presence of a DX7 would put it after 1983)

Keith Hodge was a former member of the psych band The Attack and prog band Man turned session drummer (after Man, he was the original drummer in Suzi Quatro's backing band) and later turned songwriter. Chris Staines is a multi-instrumentalist session musican, vocalist and producer. In the early 80s he was the house producer for a label called Off Street Records (based in Hayes, Middlesex) where he was sometimes credited as Kris Staines.

While at Off Street, in 1982 he produced a single called Love Love Love for a band called Above And Beyond, which was only released in Canada. It was written by Keith Hodge. It has a lot of similarities, production-wise, to Promises.

Regarding the Hodge-Dramatis link, Songwriters Workshop was the publishing and production company Dramatis were signed to. Hodge was booked as a session drummer on a few Songwriters Workshop sessions (notably none of the Dramatis ones). I don't think it's any deeper than that.

Regarding The Tymes Soul Gems album from 1990,, the full album is on YT here. There's a lot of old vocal and piano-only demos, which seem to be undeveloped songs from the 1960s-early 1970s era when Billy Jackson and Jimmy Wisner were writing and producing for them. The last two tracks, For You and Promises stand out in comparison, as they are fully finished tracks that were definitely recorded in the early to mid-80s by the sounds of it. I suspect these were for a comeback single that never got released, and were bundled up with the other unreleased stuff on that 1990 compliation.

As to whether Up Yaws was Hodge and Staines - it's possible, and that they reused the score for Promises as it's release had fallen through, but it looks like they never had much of a link to Numan, so if it was them, I doubt it was about working with him. It would be more likely to have been about working with George Williams I would think.

[buzby]

Oh, and "Dedicated to _ _ _ _ _" - George would fit that (Edit:no it wouldn't, you idiot).

It seems Williams was recording again around 1983 - he recorded 2 more songs,, Never Again and Only Holding On, written and produced for him by keyboard player Ed Bentley and featuring his band Chosen 3 on backing. These were released on an EP with Chosen 3 tracks on the B side in 1984. Other than WIlliams, there's no connection to Promises/Up Yaws, but Promises and For You from that Tymes album definitely sound contemporaneous to this track

(note that the Discogs entry for this release links the vocals to the wrong George Williams, the trumpet player for The Fatback Band)

On the Chris Staines front, a bit nore digging reveals that he co-wrote and produced Shivers Up My Spine, a single for Larry Loeber that was released on Numan's label Numa in 1984.

Staines and Eric Hines seem to have been doing a lot of sessions for the Rockcity label at the time (Loeber thanks Rock City on the rear sleeve), which was the label of Rock City Sudios in Shepperton, and produced the track for Loeber's own Megapop Productions company (Loeber was one of the support acts on Numan's Berserker tour in 1984, so possibly put the single out as a favour for him).

Numa was based in Shepperton too, and Numan used Rock City to record most of his 1980s albums. Shakatak were also regulars there, which is how the Sharpe + Numan collaboration came about.. It's therefore possible that Staines had run into Numan there at some point....

[Darles Chickens]

Georg? :)

Yeah, I got the impression that The Tymes pretty much disbanded in '77 after the release of what was to be their final album, but George Williams just kept the name going.  There was a single called Brothers and Sisters in 1980, credited to The Tymes (featuring George Williams). I agree that Promises and For You were probably due to be released as a new single, maybe a follow-up to Brothers and Sisters, but Williams didn't keep the momentum going and things collapsed.

When I was researching the Songwriters Workshop, I saw that its founder (Tim Hollier) was also the founder of the band The Softrock that Hodge played in. That seems to be the casual connection to Dramatis, but I imagine it was a small world and they all knew each other to a greater or lesser extent. A press release from Music Week May 1980 described the Songwriters Workshop as being "designed to give composers the chance to record without being subject to fashionable dictates and with the minimum of studio interference" so I imagine there was a small cabal of musicians who made the most of their freedom to try out new ideas and get things on tape.

Good digging on the Staines/Numan connection!