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

[biniput]

I just thought that the "unknown top 10 artist" may refer to someone who has written or recorded either anonymously or just crept under the radar as in the single/album was number 9 for a week then it vanished. The next thing IF we find out who recorded this is who was it dedicated to as i suppose doing that first would be almost impossible.

Maybe it wasn't a comedy bunch that did it and maybe it was a normal group who had to keep it down a bit in order to let off steam and hit some big turd in the business for the music set as a whole without too much trouble.

[Lee]

Well I didn't see my friend on the 31st, but the vinyl is all recorded, so next time I see him I'll put it up here. I've also sent a letter off to Andy('s Records) Gray today, so let's see what that yields...

[Lee]

No reply from Andy yet, but I now have a newly recorded version of the record that sounds better than anything that's come before it. It does clip a bit, occasionally to the point of distortion, but I'm trying to clean up as much of it as I can at the moment. I'll put it online here as soon as it's done, but I'm also going to put a little website together so we can spread the message further, and put it on there.

One other thing that's only become apparent with the new recording - a lot of what I had assumed was surface noise in the previous recordings was in actual fact hiss on the original recording itself. The plot thickens...

[JesusAndYourBush]

It does clip a bit, occasionally to the point of distortion, but I'm trying to clean up as much of it as I can at the moment.

Sadly with clipping there's not a lot you can do.  That's one turd that's difficult to polish.  The only thing you can do is adjust the levels and record it again.
(Unless the clipping is on drums, then you can get away with it.)

[Lee]

Most of it's on the drums and isn't noticable, but it does distort in a couple of the shouty bits near the end. It is fixable, although I'm having to do it by hand in Sound Forge, so could take a little while.

[Lee]

Well it turns out all my efforts were utterly wasted when another 'whore who shall remain nameless for now (although I'm sure he'll pop in soon) purchased a copy of Up Yaws and provided a far superior quality recording to anything I've heard so far. He's given me the WAV for cleaning purposes, so you can expect it... tomorrow! I'm also putting together a little minisite with all the information about the record which I'll hopefully finish this week. Hopefully said 'whore will provide his morsels of information very soon. They are mere morsels, but every little helps in this case...

[Languid]

Hello said whore here,

This probably means nothing much, but on the outer sleeve of the record there are three stickers. One reads, 'U27'
another reads '1986 apr'
and the other reads '81-79-82-81½-82½'
any thoughts?

The only other thing to mention is the print on the inner sleeve: 'MADE IN ENGLAND R.S 3-84'
I'm still awaiting a response from the seller but thats all for now

[Ambient Sheep]

Hah!  We shall not rest until every Verbwhore owns a copy of this record!!

Slightly annoyed with myself that I didn't think to ever mention the inner sleeve's "MADE IN ENGLAND R.S. 3-84" bit (there's two full-stops, to be utterly pedantic about it) in this thread, although I'm pretty sure I did in the old pre-2004-crash version of this thread.  Mine has the same thing, presumably meaning that it was pressed/packaged in March 1984.

As for the stickers on your sleeve, I'd guess that "1986 apr" is when yer man bought it, and "81-79-82-81½-82½" is a DJ's BPM rating of it...and having just listened to it again and counted beats for a minute, that's got to be it.

No real idea about "U27" though, but my best guess would be that, again, it was part of the DJ owner's cataloguing system, maybe it was the 27th record he owned that started with the letter "U" (for "Unknown Artist" in this case).

[Lee]

4:39, 8.32mb, V0

Cheers Languid; expect a PM later. Minisite coming soon.

And the hiss is definetely on the recording, so I've left it intact, given there's some speculation on how it was actually recorded. Removing the hiss digitally therefore wouldn't help anyone in that sense. It's still perfectly listenable.

(Yes Sheepy, it's tagged "Unknown Top-Ten Artist"...)

[Lee]

Exciting developments from our roving reporter in the PMs... Hopefully we'll have some news soon.

32 downloads already!

[biniput]

Why not just give us the news aaaaggghhhhhhhh. Non of this PM business.

[Lee]

Well I assumed if they wanted to make it public they'd post it in here themselves. And as I'm sure they would probably tell you, they'd rather I didn't speak on their behalf.

_{This post contains precisely 1 (one) joke.}

[Languid]

Nice job with the clean up, Lee. The minisite is a good idea and perhaps a facebook group would help spread the message?

[Goldentony]

OK, directly from Paul Gray of The Damned, or formerly of The Damned

Well it's cheered my day up immensely but absolutely nothing to do with me. Possible that Scabies or Sensible might be doing the backing vox seeing as it was a favourite phrase of Caps, who knows...

As mentioned above, i messaged Rat Scabies and The Damned themselves about this. There was some initial interest from them both but i've yet to get a response after posting the link. I'm hoping they eventually get back to us about this and it gets solved!

[Ambient Sheep]

WOW!!!  Thanks ever so much for that.

Glad it cheered up his day immensely.  :-)


_{^{So much for the tags, though...unless it was Scabies & Sensible having a go at Paul Gray's girlfriend without his knowledge...}}


EDIT: is it clear from the full email what was the favourite phrase of the Captain?  Was it "fucking cunt" or "awkward bastard"?  The former's not that uncommon, after all, but the second is a bit more specific.

[Lee]

Fantastic, cheers Goldentony.

Played it to an acquaintance without offering any back story, and his first thought was it was Captain Sensible singing about Adam Ant. It's a theory...

[23 Daves]

I'm adding nothing here apart from speculation, but I always supposed that it was Captain Sensible.  I'm sure he got himself his own little studio at some point in the eighties, and cranked endless little ditties for his own amusement and also for soundtrack business purposes (he financed his own double CD "Meathead" at one point which included TV themes, demos, etc. - his "Snookering You Tonight" song was used on some crap snooker-related TV quiz, as some people may remember).

So anyway, I figure he would have had studio time to kill for any joke projects he wanted to pursue on an idle evening, and he's also a top ten artist.  Guess we'll find out eventually.

[Jemble Fred]

You'll all look so foolish when Sir Paul admits it was his first attempt at a Lennon tribute.

[biniput]

Just watched the Youtube version again and to whoever runs that bit of the net the An Tsaoi comment really doesn't help with the current situation. Please take it off as that issue has nothing to do with the wider universe.

Who do you think we are DSMO??

[biniput]

Also, much disrespect sent out to biniput for being such a Softy Walter.

Pooh to you sir and double Pooh.

[biniput]

I emailed Captain Sensibles site a while back and was looking for an email reply not realising that the replies get put up in a replies section here is the message:

An obscure and seemingly privately recorded song was put in a web site for discussion about it's origins. Here is a link to the thread and site.

The song in question is quite a sweary affair and the disc and song contain no clues that anyone outside the recording of it could understand. Here is a link to the song on Youtube.

We have already asked the following and got nowhere:
Brian Conley (denied all knowledge), Robert Llewellyn, Tony Hawks and a few others including a myspace site that is apparently of yourself but that could be run by anyone. If you have any info or thoughts we would be happy to know about them.
***** ************, ********

I can see why the finger of suspicion might be pointed at my good self..... That track is simply Croydon - through and through!

My memory is not what it used to be but if I was possibly involved it must've been a riot in the studio with gallons of strong ale flowing cos I can remember nowt about it.

For some reason use of the 'C' word is still frowned upon in polite society - but it still gets ample airing in the streets of Croydon on a daily basis. Oh, and on the terraces of my beloved (and bankrupt, boo hoo) Crystal Palace FC too of course.

It is also by far Monty's favourite profanity after he's had a few. Which he most certainly does - fairly often. Belch!

I only found this by googling my name just to see what results i would get. Found a racing bicker in Northern Ireland with exactly same name as myself being 1 surprise. At least another suspect knocked off the list even if we go no further. Who is Monty though?

[Languid]

Monty OxyMoron. He is a Damned keyboardist

[alan nagsworth]

This is fascinating stuff, I've just read all four pages f the thread when I should have been in bed an hour ago, so the knackering efforts of you good men are not in vain, still after two hard years of searching! The song is bloody funny but the intoxication levels of the men supposedly involved suggests to me that we may never find out who recorded it. Still, it's great fun just spectating the search to be honest.

Good work so far and potentially in future too. And that rip of the track is marvelous. :)

[Paaaaul]

This is fascinating stuff, I've just read all four pages f the thread when I should have been in bed an hour ago, so the knackering efforts of you good men are not in vain, still after two hard years of searching! The song is bloody funny but the intoxication levels of the men supposedly involved suggests to me that we may never find out who recorded it. Still, it's great fun just spectating the search to be honest.

Good work so far and potentially in future too. And that rip of the track is marvelous. :)

It would be truly impressive for people to write,record, mix and press a song onto vinyl in a state where everybody involved was too wasted to remember doing any of it.

[alan nagsworth]

It would be truly impressive for people to write,record, mix and press a song onto vinyl in a state where everybody involved was too wasted to remember doing any of it.

Well yeah but what I was saying was that if it's hard enough to even identify the track by recognising voices and times of recording, it's gonna be even bloody harder to find the guy who was sat behind the soundproof glass on the mixer. I wasn't ruling anything out, either. I was just expressing a mutual frustration at wanting to find the origins in the 'still not giving up hope' sense.

[Tom Davies]

First of all...hello ;-)

I was googling the lyrics to this song, as I have had a 12" copy for some time. I don't know where or when I got it, but it is a white lable - with the 'fucking cunt' song on one side and some generic dance track on the other side.

The run out groove notes are: LC 001 A (and rather predictably) LC 001 B on the other. On the 'B' side there is also what looks like DMUNT .... but it could be DMONT (it is very faint)

Interesting reading, would love to find out more about it.

Cheers

Tom

[Lee]

it is a white lable - with the 'fucking cunt' song on one side and some generic dance track on the other side.

Intreguing... don't suppose you could record the other side?

[Tom Davies]

I don't have a record player - but I will track one down and get it uploaded.

[Lee]

Good man. Let me know if you need hosting.

Shame about Captain Sensible. I find it difficult to imagine that anyone would be so drunk as to record, master, press and release a single while retaining complete anonymity though. Somebody out there knows. Maybe this mystery b-side will provide a clue...

[waste of chops]

The run out groove notes are: LC 001 A (and rather predictably) LC 001 B on the other. On the 'B' side there is also what looks like DMUNT .... but it could be DMONT (it is very faint)

Probably "DAMONT", meaning the 12" was pressed by Damont Audio.

I think this could be the white label in question:

http://www.discogs.com/DEA-Dark-Days/release/575578

The MySpace of one of the members of DEA refers to "fucking cunt song" as being the b-side -- might be worth getting in touch with him to find out where it came from? It might not lead to anything -- the DEA track seems to have been released way after the original one-sided 12" so I assume they just got hold of it and put it on the b-side for a laugh -- but it could be worth a shot?