2018 is the year of Lawrence

[The Culture Bunker]

Incidentally, Deebank did do an audition to be the guitarist on Morrissey's first solo album, although by that stage Vini Reilly pretty much had the job.

I remember reading a short interview with Richard Hawley (about the time of his second album) talking about meeting Deebank while auditioning for that gig. I got the impression it was for his touring band rather than the album itself, though.

I once pissed Lawrence off a tiny bit, when they were showing that "Lawrence of Belgravia" flick in Manchester. I asked the spod on the door "can we go in?" and they shrugged. We opened the door to find the man himself on his own, and he said "we're not ready yet".

In the Q&A afterwards, he said something on the lines of "... and some people wandered in before I was ready". I bought a Go-Kart Mozart key ring by way of apology.

[mippy]

What was that anecdote about him wandering Glastonbury entirely dressed in white?

Also: were Always the band Felt could have been if Lawrence had watched more Carry On films?

[PaulTMA]

I'm not sure, but I think you might be conflating the story about The Style Council who asked for trouble by choosing to dress entirely in white for their set at the same notoriously muddy Glastonbury 1985, but it was the cleanliness-obsessed Lawrence who was in a state of horror at his surroundings and was heard to have used the phrase "I thought there would be cottages for the pop stars" in expressing his state of horror.

[PaulTMA]

Although I've managed to find this picture which doesn't suggest quite as much:

[marquis_de_sad]

I'm not sure, but I think you might be conflating the story about The Style Council who asked for trouble by choosing to dress entirely in white for their set at the same notoriously muddy Glastonbury 1985, but it was the cleanliness-obsessed Lawrence who was in a state of horror at his surroundings and was heard to have used the phrase "I thought there would be cottages for the pop stars" in expressing his state of horror.

Definitely remember the cottages anecdote from the My Magpie Eyes book.

[holyzombiejesus]

Really great interview with Lawrence looking back over his career just up on The Quietus. You can really hear him saying some of this stuff...

Then the day I left school I went to see Television at the Odeon. All my friends were like, are you coming to the pub? No, I'm going to a gig. What? You're not coming out with us, all your friends? We're all going to the pub for the first time ever, we've left school! Why aren't you coming? No, I'm going to a gig tonight. And they'd go, what are you doing that for? They just couldn't understand it. That day was the end of any relationship I had with any of my old friends from school. It was quite an important moment, really.

http://thequietus.com/articles/24054-lawrence-felt-denim-go-kart-mozart-interview

[poodlefaker]

Am I the only one who prefers the Duffy era of Felt? "Ballad of the Band" 12 inch, "Space Blues" single and Pictorial Jackson Review were always my favourite Felt releases. I think his instrumental stuff is particularly strong, esp. considering how young he was. An amazing talent that he largely pissed away in Primal Scream.

[Nelson]

He's about to be on Gideon Coe on 6 music now

[Crabwalk]

Very early impressions of the remasters are that they're sounding great (on Apple Music). In a moment of nocturnal weakness I ordered the Strange Idols Pattern... deluxe CD last night from Cherry Red. I am a terrible sucker for signed records but the package does look lovely overall, with the 'Penelope Tree' 7", some badges, posters etc thrown in. Couldn't spring for the full 5 album vinyl box at £100+ so this is my consolation.

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/the-strange-idols-pattern-other-short-stories-remastered-cd-7-vinyl-box-set/

[PaulTMA]

I like but don't necessarily prefer the prefer remix of Ignite The Seven Cannons.  But Mozart's Mini Mart is the album truly worth celebrating today

[holyzombiejesus]

Gonna skive off work in a few minutes to go and but the latter. It's got really good reviews so far, which is a relief as I thought the Marc Riley session sounded a bit rough. Got all the Felt albums so undecided about the reissues but, yeah, probably will. Bet the spines all match. Not sure at all about those CDs with 7" singles and badges etc box set things though.

Couldn't spring for the full 5 album vinyl box at £100+ so this is my consolation.

Is there a box set containing all 5 albums or just 5 separate ones?

[Crabwalk]

Sorry for the confusion, it's just a bundle of the 5 on Bleep I was referring to. Shouldn't have referred to a 'box'.

https://bleep.com/release/95593-felt-a-decade-in-music-the-first-five-lps-reissue-bundle

[wosl]

Bet the spines all match. Not sure at all about those CDs with 7" singles and badges etc box set things though.

Everything matches to a degree that's exasperating, since the concept of respecting the past has been thoroughly ridden roughshod over!  I got boxes of all the ones featuring Deebank in the line-up, and they arrived this morning.  Have yet to give the musical contents a proper listen, to assess differences and improvements, but as objets d'art they're a bit underwhelming.  As I'd feared, but was still holding out hope against, the CD sleeves aren't facsimiles of the original vinyl covers, but are rather designed to complement the concentric rings design of the box cover (which I believe ultimately derives from the design of the original studio tape boxes).  The original cover designs are included as folded posters, with flyers printed on the back.  The 7" sleeves are a more slavish variation of the box cover design.  It was well nigh inevitable that Lawrence would fart around with the packaging of this round of reissues, as he did with the last lot, but his consistency-of-presentation fixation has led to a unified look that's boringly kitsch (everything chimes with the 'flower-head' design and is keyed to a mauve palette), and honours neither the past nor the individuality of the originals.  The other bit of 'rare ephemera' (the rather hollow grandiosity of Cherry Red's fanfaring is now revealed!) consists of fob-type oblongs of grey card that have had scanned music paper gig ads printed on them - cue a Ted Maul-style "fat use."  Also (and I can imagine this irritating Lawrence, so I feel bound to include it), the badge sets ("FELT LOVE TELEVISION"! "WATER ORTON"! "NICK GILBERT"!) have been packed in such a way that their pins have left indentations on the CD covers.  On the plus side I suppose, I now have a quartet of Lawrence signatures (I see his pen was beginning to give out by the time he got around to signing the Ignite The Seven Cannons batch of boxes). Anyway, it's on to the important stuff later.

[Crabwalk]

FUCKING KNEW I SHOULD'VE JUST GONE FOR THE VINYL

[wosl]

Pics!




The badges have got little bits of rust on them!  Been sitting around in someone's garage, waiting for the rest of the box components to be produced and assembled, it looks like. Badge shambles.

[scarecrow]

Isn't present day Cherry Red notoriously bad for its lazy, bare bones packaging? If a label like Fire had reissued these Felt LPs, I'd've leapt at them.

[holyzombiejesus]

I was going to say much the same and I'm surprised that Lawrence has agreed to these. Those CD boxes look really tacky. I know that Cherry Red were tweeting photos of the signed stickers over a year ago so am guessing various components have been stashed for quite a while, hence the rust. As an aside, would anyone buying those CD reissues put a 'double-sided wall poster' up in their house? Posters that come with records are generally awful, aren't they? I can only think of Frankenchrist and Licensed to Ill that had anything worth displaying.

[wosl]

Isn't present day Cherry Red notoriously bad for its lazy, bare bones packaging?

Now you tell me!

Those CD boxes look really tacky.

Agreed (sadly, they're also the most well made things in the sets).  They should've gone the 'Deluxe Edition' digipak route with these.  But then, the vinyl versions, although looking at first glance to be reasonably well-rendered facsimiles, appear to be a half-assed job as well.  You can see from the photos put out by Cherry Red that they've expanded band photos to fill the inner faces of the gatefolds, rather than attempting to do a proper job of extending the look and feel of the cover designs (the spindle-hole labels aren't faithful, either).  If you can't or won't produce something that's true to the appearance and spirit of the original record, why bother?  This sort of task isn't a creative brief, but a 'reconstructive' one, i.e. to produce an accurate-looking 'forgery,' with sympathetically integrated extensions or extrapolations, where needed.  Another CD reissue I recently got, the Durutti Column's Another Setting, put out by Factory Benelux, shows how to do it: it looks and feels like an authentic bijou version of the original vinyl, right down to using the same matte-reverse printed board for the cover, and using a reproduction of the vinyl disc label on the CD disc surface.  Exemplary.  Lawrence's decision not to include extras on any of these begins to irk a lot more when you find that the packaging isn't up to snuff.

[holyzombiejesus]

The gatefolds are like some 60s albums I have where the front cover side is just one ply (if that makes sense). There are a few nice touches with the design but if you're trying to create a unified look to the albums, you're really going to struggle when you go from quite sparse and sombre Crumbling The Antisceptic Beauty to bright and colourful Poem of The River and Me and a Monkey. I'll probably get the LPs but those CDs are horrible. Even the signed bit is just a sticker on the front of the shrinkwrap; how are you supposed to keep that?

[Crabwalk]

Yes, got mine today and it's been a waste of money. I opened the shrink wrap before realising the signature is on the outside so not sure if I'll even be able to return it now. Dunce.

Edit: I've discovered that it's easy enough to peel the sticker from the cellophane and attach it to the inside cover of the box.

[wosl]

By the way, good old eccentric old Lawrence, in a prime instance of what-you-give-with-one hand, has reinstated Crucifix Heaven to Strange Idols, only to have Serpent Shade removed from Ignite The Seven Cannons.  Deebank's Elegance has had a couple of minutes chopped out of it, too.  Makes a mockery of his insistence that no extra tracks be added to these because it wouldn't be a true reflection of the original formats or the era they were first released in.  If you can't add extras on that basis, then you sure as hell can't subtract original material on the basis of it (Lawrence has managed to create an inverted/irreversible version of that old adage about adding salt to food).  Of course, the tracks in question prominently feature Deebank's playing.  Even at this late stage, Lawrence is still fucking with Maurice and Maurice fans. 

[PaulTMA]

It seems he deleted a song from Ignite as the lack of symmetry in having 11 tracks had been bugging him for all those years.

I doubt cutting Maurice's stuff is supposed to be a slight against him, especially as he's always raving about how great he thinks he is, it's just a case of if anything's going to go, it will be something that Lawrence didn't contribute to.

[wosl]

If he's honouring symmetry (which here amounts to getting lines of text printed on a cover to balance in a visually 'pleasing' way) above the playing contributions of a singularly talented former colleague, then I think you can see it as a slight.  Felt were a great band to the extent that they remained a band, rather than a group of studio assistants passively carrying out Lawrence's orders.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

Here is more details about that Smiths gig, in the ticket stub above. Always wondered if they played together. Allegedly there was a possibility of a split single with The Smiths and Jasmine Minks,  but Morrissey went to see them and then vetoed the idea.

http://www.passionsjustlikemine.com/live/smiths-g830915.htm

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

Presumably he reinstated Crucifix Heaven, which has never been on CD before, so he could feel ok about taking away from the other album.

[itsfredtitmus]

is Lawrence of Belgravia available anywhere for a decent price or is this one for the hard to find film thread?

[Neomod]

is Lawrence of Belgravia available anywhere for a decent price or is this one for the hard to find film thread?

The DVD was limited to 2000 copies and took a fucking age to come out in the first place (I got one but I'm still waiting for Take 3 Girls - The Dolly Mixture Story) so re-sellers on ebay is I guess your best option. Yours for 90 notes.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lawrence-Of-Belgravia-DVD-REGION-FELT-GO-KART-MOZART-DENIM-V-RARE/282844246867?hash=item41dad4b353:g:6JIAAOSwBRVagB-L

[holyzombiejesus]

Lawrence said a while ago that they were going to do the no frills Heavenly issue and then the BFI were going to do one with loads of extras. Don't know if that will actually happen as Lawrence's plans don't always come to anything but many of Paul Kelly's other films have ended up released by the BFI.

[Jockice]

is Lawrence of Belgravia available anywhere for a decent price or is this one for the hard to find film thread?

Blimey! I have a goldmine in my own flat. A friend of mine who lives down south and I only see about three or four times a year wants to borrow it, but given his propensity for not returning borrowed items he can bugger off.

[holyzombiejesus]

One recently went for £200. I had 2 copies and gave one to my sister who still hasn't watched it after possessing it for 13 months. I might burgle her house. Odd that there are over 2000 people so interested in seeing this.