That band The Idle Race were fucking great

[ajsmith2]

In a lot of ways Jeff Lynne never topped this stuff imo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko7OHKE1nno

Sounds kind of proto new wave/Devo/Sparksy paranoud and pop dissonant to me. Any other fans?

[purlieu]

Ah yes, their first album (+ associated singles) are just about my favourite music from the 1960s. A mix of musical hall whimsy and, as you say, a kind of proto-new wave energy with some blackly humorous lyrics (half the characters on the first album end up dying).

Some favourites:
The Skeleton and the Roundabout
I Like My Toys
End of the Road
Don't Put Your Boys in the Army Mrs. Ward
Knocking Nails Into My House


I never got on too well with the second album, it seemed to veer towards Lynne's mid '70s ELO style of mid-tempo piano stuff that just doesn't do much for me, but some of his tracks with The Move were tremendous too.

[ajsmith2]

I like the second album a lot, but yeah it is maybe a bit more mid paced and conventional in stretches. 'Mr Crow And Sir Norman' is as mental as anything on the first album though. And 'Please No More Sad Songs' is just a damn fine tune by any standard too.

The non-LP single from between the two albums 'Day Of The Broken Arrows' might be my favourite of theirs on some days, just an absolutely bizzare driving pop song, laced throughout with a kind of crazed impalacable mood of sinister childhood nostalgia. Utterly weird lyrics too,  for instace:

'Don't be too sad when you're waiting for death
The message on the garden wall says
Mickey Mouse is bad'  I mean ??????

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN8U5GdvrPo

[purlieu]

'Mr Crow And Sir Norman' is as mental as anything on the first album though.

Ah yes, that's the one! I knew there was a track on it that I loved.

[Brundle-Fly]

Love The Idle Race. There's another sixties band on the tip of my tongue I think there is a slim chance you both might not have heard. It means rooting around in a box so I'll report back. I take it you like Stackridge?

[itsfredtitmus]

They're the only band other than Cardiacs and The Beatles that understood how occult British society is

[ajsmith2]

Love The Idle Race. There's another sixties band on the tip of my tongue I think there is a slim chance you both might not have heard. It means rooting around in a box so I'll report back. I take it you like Stackridge?

I'm afraid to admit it's a huge gap in my musical knowledge that despite knowing they'd be a band I'm likely to enjoy, I've never properly investigated Stackridge. I really should remedy that when I can. I do own the first Korgis album though, which as I recall for a new wave record from 1980 contains some pretty eccentric music hall styled tunes ('Dirty Postcards' being the one that sticks in my mind).

[itsfredtitmus]

Stackridge are lovely, as if Sgt. Pepper but instead Genesis