The Television Peronalities, from London, were active between 1977 and 1998, and then again since 2004. There have been twelve albums, going back to And Don’t The Kids Just Love It (Rough Trade, 1981) through to Beautiful Despair (Fire Records, 2018). Discogs lists 36 singles/EPs, some of which were split releases with other band, on over 20 different labels, two of which, Whaam! and Dreamworld were owned and run by frontman, Dan Treacy. The debut single was the self-released 14th Floor in 1978, later re-pressed in 1989 by Overground Records, a label specialising in punk releases and reissues.
Given it had been so far back since the debut, it was fair to say The Television Personalities were veterans of the indie music scene and indeed already had with eight singles and four albums to their name. They weren’t part of the C86 cassette, and I’ve a feeling they wouldn’t have wanted to be, but Bob Stanley was never going to ignore their influence and significance when he came to curate the 2006 celebratory release:-
mp3: Paradise Estate – The Television Personalities
Track 24, Disc 1 of CD86.
Paradise Estate, was the b-side of A Sense of Belonging, a single released on Rough Trade back in early 1983. Lyrically, both tracks were far from cheery numbers, and were housed in a sleeve that had a photograph of the face of a young child who had been beaten and battered. Both songs can also be found on The Painted Word, the band’s fourth album, released by London-based Illuminated Records
The Nightingales, from Birmingham, were active between 1979 and 1986, and then again since 2004, with frontman Robert Lloyd being one of the most important and influential figures across the post-punk/indie scenes. The first time around, there were ten singles/EPs and three albums, while there have been twelve singles and eleven albums since the band reformed. Huge favourites of John Peel, the band recorded eight sessions between 1980 and 1986.
They have released their music across a number of different labels. The debut single, Idiot Strength, was on Rough Trade in 1981, but much of the rest of the 80s was through Cherry Red Records or Vindaloo Records, which was established by Robert Lloyd in 1980 prior to any music being released by The Nightingales.
mp3: Part Time Moral England – The Nightingales
Track 6, Disc Three of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition
This was originally recorded for the 1986 album, In The Good Old Country Way, which came out on Vindaloo. The album which was written and recorded when Robert was, as he put it, going through his country music phase, listening a lot to Tammy Wynette. Not that you’d recognise many of its songs as being country in the way we’ve long been used to.
Laugh, from Manchester, released one flexidisc, four singles and an album between 1986 and 1988. There were three singles in 1987 and 1988 on The Remorse Label, a short-lived operation which was based in Orpington in Kent, which were followed by a single and an album on Sub Aqua, an even shorter-lived label that was started up by Jeff Barrett, a former press officer at Creation Records and who would later be the founder of Heavenly Records, which is still one of the most important labels operating in the UK today.
Track 13, Disc 1 of CD86.
Their second single for Remorse, released in 1987 and one which featured Craig Gannon, not too long removed from his brief stint as the additional guitarist in The Smiths. Laugh would break up in 1989, but the following year two of the band’s members would be part of Intastella, who signed to MCA Records and enjoyed some minor chart success over the first half of the 90s.
The appearance of the lid of the C86 boxset should give you an indication that there’s not a lot out there on this lot, and they appear to be another of the obscure and, for the most part, wholly underwhelming acts that Neil Taylor pulled out from either his memory bank or past mentions in the NME when compiling this on behalf of Cherry Red Records.
mp3: The Peacock Nose – Kilgore Trout
From Last.fm:-
Kilgore Trout – an alternative rock band that was based in Nottingham and Sheffield in the north of England between 1985 and 1991. In that time Kilgore Trout released two EPs, contributed eight tracks to two compilation LPs, and appeared on a flexidisc. This band’s mainstay was Chris Trout, a seminal figure in the British alternative music scene, who has also worked with Bear, A.C. Temple, Spoonfed Hybrid, Lazerboy, Coping Saw and Smokers Die Younger.
If you say so.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 