An Alternative History of "Pop" Music

[jamiefairlie]

Superb!

I was wondering why this wasn't at least a modest top 30 hit in the UK, but I guess the lack of airplay (Annie excepted) really put the brakes on it.

I think he was also typecast as the loveable scruffy punk who wasn't too scary, so the huge shift in stylistic and musical form was difficult for people to comprehend and give it a fair shake.

[jamiefairlie]

Positive Noise - Refugees

https://youtu.be/P1MCUZgy3A8



Formed in Glasgow in 1979 by the three Middleton brothers, this is their first release (part of a sampler called Second City Statik).

They went on to release three albums before calling it a day in 1985.

[Phil_A]

Thirteen At Midnight - Follow Yourself



Another banger from the excellent Snoopies Album. Can't find much about the band, there are couples of LPs credited to Thirteen After Midnight which have more of an electronic pop sound, but with a male instead of a female singer so I dunno. It was definitely wasn't the Thirteen At Midnight based in Melbourne who did a cover of She Sells Sanctuary.

'Snoopies' was an alternative music venue in Richmond (London) that closed its doors in 1981. As a 'celebration' of the venue, the promoter there gave the wonderfully named 'Ralph.E.Boy' unrestricted access to the demo tapes of bands that had played there. Ralph picked 15 of the best tracks for a compilation album, and privately pressed 1000 copies on to vinyl. Bands included on the compliation include 'The Cardiacs', 'The Scissor Fits' & 'The Tronics','Europeans','Plain Characters'.Amazing DIY compilation!

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - Nag



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2iFBe-ZGs8

From her big breakthrough album, I Love Rock 'n' Roll, this is Joan's rrrrrrocked-up version of an early '60s R&B hit by The Halos. It was released as a single, but failed to match the success of her preceding singles from the album, namely Crimson and Clover, Do You Wanna Touch Me and, of course, I Love Rock 'n' Roll itself.

[Better Midlands]

Bits & Pieces - Don't Stop The Music (Island 1981)




Crazy fat production on this cover of the Yarbrough & Peoples club smash from 1980 by Sly & Robbie - I've linked the extended instrumental version.

[Better Midlands]

Codek - Demo (MCA 1981)

Codek is the brainchild of Jean-Marie Salaun who grew up in Paris influenced by the folklore of the inner city. In 1978 he joined art rock group SpionS alongside Gregory Davidow and recorded two singles. Diving into the Paris post punk scene he met Claude Arto and designed the artwork for Claude's single on Celluloid "Kwai Systeme / Betty Boop." Robin Scott (M "Pop Music") had produced the SpionS first single and wanted to collaborate further. With Claude, Jean-Marie wrote "Me Me Me", intended for a choir, for M. Then SpionS split and Robin was off to Switzerland to record an album to follow-up his hit single. That left Jean-Marie alone in London, where he began working as Codek.

Demo is the b-side of Me, Me, Me.

[Brundle-Fly]

Around The Old Campfire - Little & Large. Released on EMI in 1981



Why?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7u47vb3OL8&feature=emb_logo

[jamiefairlie]

Section 25 - New Horizon

https://youtu.be/kzIOt-3Ke4w



Formed in Poulton-le-Fylde near Blackpool, Lancashire, in November 1977, they released their debut single  "Girls Don't Count" in July 1980 on Factory Records. It was produced by joy Division's Ian Curtis. This is taken from their debut album, Always Now, released in September.

They went on to release a further three albums on Factory before splitting in 1989.

In 2010 Larry Cassidy died at the age of 56

[daf]

The Passions - (Don't Talk To Me) I'm Shy



Flip side of 'I'm In Love With a German Film Star' released in January 1981 - reached #25 in the UK charts

The Passions were formed in early 1978 as The Youngsters with a line-up of Barbara Gogan (guitar, vocals), Claire Bidwell (bass guitar), Richard Williams (drums), Dack Dyde (guitar) and Mitch Barker (vocals). After a name change to Rivers of Passion, soon shortened to The Passions, Dyde was replaced by Clive Timperley, formerly of The 101ers.

They released their first single 'Needles And Pills' in March 1979. By the time the band recorded the first of their three John Peel sessions in November 1979, Barker had departed and Gogan took over as lead vocalist. 'Michael & Miranda', the band's debut album, was released on 18 April 1980.

   

Their major chart hit, ''I'm in Love with a German Film Star'', was released as the band's fourth single on 23 January 1981. The lyrics were written by Gogan about Steve Connelly, a one-time roadie for The Clash and Sex Pistols who had minor roles in several German films. According to producer Peter Wilson : "It was a song that almost seemed to write itself".

Timperley left the band in Verona, Italy, in December 1981, during the Italian leg of their prophetically named "Tour Till We Crack" tour, as a result of "serious political differences". The next single, "Africa Mine", released on 8 January 1982, was recorded by the remaining members.

Barbara Gogan : "It's the same old story. Some bands play together for 10 years and it's all very wonderful and imaginative. More often, though, you reach a point where you've done all you can do and you want to change. Whenever we've reached that point someone has always left and brought us a step further on. Any band playing their own songs to the public has a duty to change and keep being imaginative all the time."

[jamiefairlie]

Sailing a bit close to being a hit that one, no?

[daf]

Curses, foiled again!

OK - I've flipped the disc to the more obscure B-side.

[jamiefairlie]

Curses, foiled again!

OK - I've flipped the disc to the more obscure B-side.

righty-ho, I just did the same, listening now :-)

[The Culture Bunker]

One of many singles from my favourite Sheffield band that went nowhere: Comat Angels with 'Eye of the Lens'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAvOiuVq95o



Much like North Manchester's Chameleons, I wonder if their signing to a major label did them no favours by denying them the credibility being on an indie had at the time.

[jamiefairlie]

Agreed, if they'd been on Factory or 4AD it might have been a different story (the "real story", as it were, ahem)

[jamiefairlie]

The Chefs - 24 hours

https://youtu.be/OyCRFPg3fEU



Formed in Brighton in 1979, this is their debut single. It's a prefect encapsulation of teenage romantic obsession, and the gulf between real life and fantasy: 'I know if I catch you it might turn out/That it's not as much fun as I'd hoped that it would be/ 'Cause wishing and waiting it what it's all about/ And dreams are worth ten times more than reality.'

they put out a couple of other bits and pieces before splitting up in 1982.

[daf]

Sir John Betjeman - The Varsity Students' Rag



Featured on the album 'Sir John Betjeman's Varsity Rag' - released in 1981

John Betjeman's poems are often humorous, and in broadcasting he exploited his bumbling and fogeyish image. His wryly comic verse is accessible and has attracted a great following for its satirical and observant grace. His poetry is similarly redolent of time and place, continually seeking out intimations of the eternal in the manifestly ordinary. In a 1962 radio interview he told teenage questioners that he could not write about 'abstract things', preferring places, and faces.

Betjeman became Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom in 1972. This role, combined with his popularity as a television performer, ensured that his poetry reached an audience enormous by the standards of the time. Similarly to Tennyson, he appealed to a wide public and managed to voice the thoughts and aspirations of many ordinary people while retaining the respect of many of his fellow poets.

Philip Larkin : "how much more interesting & worth writing about Betjeman's subjects are than most other modern poets, I mean, whether so-and-so achieves some metaphysical inner unity is not really so interesting to us as the overbuilding of rural Middlesex. The quality in his poetry loosely called nostalgia is really that never-sleeping alertness to note the patina of time on things past which is the hall-mark of the mature writer."

In the early 1970s, he began a recording career of four albums on Charisma Records, including : 'Banana Blush' and 'Late Flowering Love' both released in 1974, 'Sir John Betjeman's Britain' in 1977, and 'Varsity Rag' in 1981. The albums, in which the poet recited his own words over music conducted by the composer Jim Parker, have continued to be held in high regard by listeners and critics.

   

After graduating as a silver medallist at the Guildhall School of Music, Jim Parker played with leading London orchestras and chamber groups as well as being a key part of The Barrow Poets for whom he provided original instrumental music to accompany the performance of a wide range of poetry spoken or sung by the rest of the band. This music was played on a variety of instruments including the Bass Cacacofiddle, a home made sort of double bass with knobs on, played by William Bealby-Wright, while Parker mostly played oboe and cor anglais.

Although this would seem to be miles away from the early 80's music scene, it just occurred to me that it fits in neatly with the TV smash of the year - 'Brideshead Revisited' - set around Oxford University in the 1920's, and first broadcast on Granada in October 1981.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Around The Old Campfire - Little & Large. Released on EMI in 1981



Why?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7u47vb3OL8&feature=emb_logo

Brundle! This thread, as always, is movin' thick and fast (Syd and Eddie's original professional double-act name), so we're always going to repeat each other at some point. Smiley face and that.

Little & Large - Around the Old Campfire



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7u47vb3OL8

CaB favourites Syd & Eddeh apparently ended every episode of their 1980/1981 BBC series with this rousing ditty. I have no recollection of that at all, but here it is for posterity's sake. It was also included on their second and final album, Little & Large Live at Abbey Road, but failed to chart when it was released as a single (despite being promoted every bloody week on primetime BBC One).

[daf]

It's a shame the B-side, 'I'm In Love With Angela Rippon' isn't on youtube - I would have definitely bagged that one!

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

These itchy post-punk acts are all very well, but Eddie Large doing impressions of Basil Brush truly encapsulate the bleak, searing intensity of early '80s Thatcher's Britain. 

[Astronaut Omens]

According to Wikipedia, in 1981 one of Senegal's top bands Etoile de Dakar split into two camps, Etoile 2000 and Super Etoile de Dakar, with the latter featuring future "World Music" star Youssou N' Dour on vocals. This tune is from one of four cassettes Super Etoile released in 1981.

Super Etoile de Dakar : Thiapathioli 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUtamW46rHc

[Astronaut Omens]

Bernard Wright- Haboglabotripin'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BnhZL2xcYg

This funk tune, by the only 16-year-old Wright wasn't a hit at the time but has two subsequent revivals in interest in it, first after being sampled by Snoop Doggy Dogg and Dr. Dre, and later for it's appearance in the game GTAV.

[Astronaut Omens]

Sir John Betjeman - The Varsity Students' Rag

Featured on the album 'Sir John Betjeman's Varsity Rag' - released in 1981

Although this would seem to be miles away from the early 80's music scene, it just occurred to me that it fits in neatly with the TV smash of the year - 'Brideshead Revisited' - set around Oxford University in the 1920's, and first broadcast on Granada in October 1981.

Really nicely put-together post, I like the Larkin quote.
I suppose you could say that the broad conservative distaste for the crassest aspects of the modern world that runs through Betjemen's work (most famously in "Come Friendly Bombs") has echoes in some punk lyrics -"Your future dream is a shopping scheme", and in some of Morrissey's words- I guess "the seaside town that they forgot to bomb" is an allusion to Betjamin's poem.

[jamiefairlie]

Bernard Wright- Haboglabotripin'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BnhZL2xcYg

This funk tune, by the only 16-year-old Wright wasn't a hit at the time but has two subsequent revivals in interest in it, first after being sampled by Snoop Doggy Dogg and Dr. Dre, and later for it's appearance in the game GTAV.

Put me in mind of Antony Carmichael in the final of music 2000....

https://youtu.be/aR8qtxts1jY

[jamiefairlie]

Wah! - The 7000 Names of Wah!

https://youtu.be/0823htEKMPo



Second appearance from Pete Wylie's ever name changing band. This version is taken from NME's C81 compilation tape (a different version appeared on their debut album later in the year).

[Jockice]

The Chefs - 24 hours

https://youtu.be/OyCRFPg3fEU



Formed in Brighton in 1979, this is their debut single. It's a prefect encapsulation of teenage romantic obsession, and the gulf between real life and fantasy: 'I know if I catch you it might turn out/That it's not as much fun as I'd hoped that it would be/ 'Cause wishing and waiting it what it's all about/ And dreams are worth ten times more than reality.'

they put out a couple of other bits and pieces before splitting up in 1982.

I loved that single. And the b-side, Thrush. Although I had to play it very quietly so my parents wouldn't hear the lyrics. "I was just a bunk-up, for you to get your spunk up." I somehow don't think they'd have approved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KITKnV6nJ_o

[Jockice]

One of many singles from my favourite Sheffield band that went nowhere: Comat Angels with 'Eye of the Lens'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAvOiuVq95o



Much like North Manchester's Chameleons, I wonder if their signing to a major label did them no favours by denying them the credibility being on an indie had at the time.

Good choice. I was thinking of posting some myself. I used to hear them rehearsing while I was on my paper round. Unfortunately Steve Fellows hates my guts nowadays. I can't think why. All I did was reveal in the paper that they'd split up before he'd told the rest of the band. That's all.

[Brundle-Fly]

Brundle! This thread, as always, is movin' thick and fast (Syd and Eddie's original professional double-act name), so we're always going to repeat each other at some point. Smiley face and that.

Stands back in amazement! My brain must've thought your entry was in the Little & Large thread in CC. Soz.

[Jockice]

Parking Boys - Acrobats Of Desire

More from Sheffield. Silly song, which is part of an EP, also containing the superior but even sillier Scrapin' Tapioca, which hasn't made it onto youtube.

Over to Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrobats_of_Desire. I know Deborah nowadays. She's lovely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W-LvivfUaI

[Brundle-Fly]

Peace Of Mind - The Swinging Laurels. Released on Albion in 1981





One of the best brass sections in British pop at that time.

The Swinging Laurels were a jazz-influenced pop act from Leicester, UK. Formed in 1980 by ex-member of The Wendy Tunes, Gaz Birtles, and ex collaborator of Black Gorilla, John Barrow, both saxophonists. They released their first single as a duo in 1981 and then recruited synth and trumpet player Dean Sargent and keyboardist Mark O'Hara. They released six singles with a sound-based heavily on the saxes, till the end of the '80s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl_T0xTq-YY&feature=emb_logo

[Jockice]

Later to combine with members of the previously-mentioned (by me) Il y a Volkswagens to become The Apollinaires' first brass section. I love all this interconnecting stuff.