August 2026 – Page 2 – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

Dentists, Noseflutes, Soup Dragons, This Poison!

C86 : THE ULTIMATE SERIES (Parts 75, 76, 77, and 78 of 114)

The story of The Dentists was outlined in great detail in an earlier edition of this series (Parts 43-46), but a quick reminder that they were active between 1984 and 1995, during which time they released ten singles/EPs and four albums.

mp3: Peppermint Dreams – The Dentists

Track 9, Disc Two of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition

One of five tunes to be found on the 12″ EP Down and Out In Paris and Chatham, released in 1986 on their own Tambourine Records.

The second time that The Dentists have featured and the second time the word ‘Dream’ has featured in the song title.

The Noseflutes, from Birmingham, released three EPs and three albums between 1986 and 1991.

The first two releases were the debut EP, Girth, which came out in 1986 and the album Several Young Men Ignite Hardboard Stump in 1987, both on Reflex Records which was based in Malvern, Worcestershire.

mp3: Perfect Cockney Hard-On – The Noseflutes

Track 12, Disc Three of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition

The opening track on the debut album.

A columnist in a Birmingham newspaper once said The Noseflutes were a ‘wonderfully perverse avant weird outfit’. If you want my take, there’s at least one too many words in that description.

The next two EPs would be issued by Ron Johnson Records in 1986 and 1987, while two albums would be issued courtesy of their own label, Rictus Recordings in 1989 and 1991.

The Soup Dragons, from Bellshill (see previous entries in the series) were initially active between 1985 and 1995, and again since 2023. There were sixteen singles and four albums first time around, and there’s been one single since the comeback, albeit there’s been loads of gigs.

An initial flexidisc release brought them to the attention of the Bristol-based The Subway Organisation, and their debut single, Whole Wide World was released in mid-1986, reaching #2 on the indie chart

mp3: Pleasantly Surprised – The Soup Dragons

Track 3 on side 1 of the C86 cassette; Track 3, Disc One of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition

Yup, one of the two songs on the b-side of the debut single was already known via its inclusion on the C86 cassette.

This was the only single the band would issue via Subway as they were then snapped up by Big Life Records, a label best known for dance music but whose owners thought The Soup Dragons would be the next big thing in indie music, while Sire Records took care of everything for the band stateside. As it turned out, the band’s indie-style music never took them beyond cult status, but by 1990, having experimented a bit with drum machines and samplers and edged their way into what would be termed indie-dance, they really hit the big time, with hit singles on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Soup Dragons disbanded in 1995, and its members went into do all sorts of things in music via other bands, DJ’ing and mixing.

Spoiler alert…..Whole Wide World will feature later on in this series.

This Poison!, from Perth (Scotland and not Australia!) came together in 1985 and disbanded in 1989, and would release just two singles during that time.

Like many other bands of the era, their initial demo recordings were on cassette, copies of which were sent out to all and sundry in the hope of landing a record deal. The band members also thought that Perth, being a reasonably-sized city, could get a big enough audience to attract indie bands slogging their way around the UK, and so they set themselves up as promoters.

One of the bands who agreed to play in Perth was The Wedding Present, in 1986. David Gedge liked what he heard on the demo tape and invited This Poison! to record and release singles via his band’s newly established Reception Records. The debut, Engine Failure, was released in 1987, the catalogue number shows it was released between You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends and George Best.

Next up was their second and as it turns out, final single

mp3: Paused Over The Pause Button – This Poison!

Track 16, Disc 2 of CD86.

Another of the great lost 45s of the era, if very much of its time. It was released, going by the catalogue number, immediately before Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm. Derek Moir, the guitarist with This Poison! has since said that the inability to fully market the singles proved to be a hindrance, and in due course the collapse of Red Rhino Distribution meant there was no money for a planned third single, and so the band called it a day.

JC

Fire Island (feat. Loleatta Holloway, Hifi Sean

THE 12″ LUCKY DIP (38): Fire Island (feat. Loleatta Holloway) – Shout To The Top

Fire Island is a name used by the English house music duo, Pete Heller and Terry Farley, and in 1998, they recorded a version of The Style Council‘s hit single from 1984, Shout To The Top, and brought in the veteran American singer Loleatta Holloway to provide the vocal.

Musically it’s reasonably true in many ways to the original, but the vocal, as was so often the case when Ms Holloway got involved, quite sensational.

Loleatta Holloway died in 2011 at the age of 64, and sadly she wasn’t around to ever hear the amazing remix job delivered by Hifi Sean in 2021.

Seemingly there were no musical parts on the tape which landed in Sean’s hands, just the vocal, and so he went about rewriting the arrangement and, in the words of the record label which released the 12″ single “brings this beauty into the present day with three versions that include a soulful string laden soul groover, a late-night gospel house jam and a swooning orchestral reprise.

mp3: Fire Island (feat. Loleatta Holloway) – Shout To The Top (Hifi Sean Mix)
mp3: Fire Island (feat. Loleatta Holloway) – Shout To The Top (Hifi Sean House Mix)
mp3: Fire Island (feat. Loleatta Holloway) – Shout To The Top (Hifi Sean Reprise)

There has been many a day when I’ve thought this might just about the most joyous piece of plastic you’ll find in Villain Towers. Oh, and one of my proudest moments came when I sneaked the mix into a pre-match playlist for a Raith Rovers game during the few years when I was stadium announcer.

Happy Monday, everyone.

JC

#magazine45s

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF MAGAZINE (3)

Give Me Everything (VS 237) : Released November 1978 on 7″

This was originally posted on 8 April 2010 (and re-posted on 7 August 2014) with the title ‘GET IT RIGHT UP YE’

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For years, I thought that the Factory Records mogul was the brains behind the production of this, the third single from Magazine released on 17th November 1978.

Turns out it was a totally different Tony Wilson…one who for years worked at the BBC. Stupid me…..

For some artistic reason, Howard Devoto insisted that Give Me Everything be released without any marketing campaign and with no review copies to be sent to the music press. Almost as if he wanted it not to succeed. And almost as if he wanted to avoid dealing with any music journalists.

However, the review penned by Dave McCullough in Sounds showed that the strategy somewhat backfired:-

At last I have Howie and his chums sussed. They’re really The Muppets in disguise laughing their scraggy-heads off while the hundred thousand punks STILL take them seriously. This is dreadful – the lyrics proving more cringeworthy even than usual. ‘You’re so oblique and easy’. Look – Howie – you’re as much a poet as Len Fairclough is a poet – so why don’tcha sod off – you baldy little pain?

Or had it backfired?? Howard’s response was to send the journalist a cheque for £10 with the words:-

Your review of Give Me Everything was so unbelievably sympathetic, was so to the point that this £10 of my enthusiastic and shrieking money must go to you. You’re not so oblique but you’re so easy. You must have it. I hope you can see that. I’m sorry it couldn’t be more. Please cash it. Have a Christmas. Howard.

Which was of course printed in full in the following week’s edition of the paper…….an incident that helped inspire the later song Feed The Enemy.

mp3 : Magazine – Give Me Everything
mp3 : Magazine – I Love You You Big Dummy

The b-side is a cover of a Captain Beefheart song (now there’s something I never ever got….and as a consequence have nothing of his/theirs on vinyl or CD). It remains one of the most popular Magazine recording ever as evidenced by its inclusion in the sets of the comeback gigs in February 2009.

I wonder if the journo and Howard ever kissed and made up??

Oh and as a wee bonus, here’s yer Peel Sessions versions:-

mp3 : Magazine – Give Me Everything (Peel Session)
mp3 : Magazine – I Love You You Big Dummy (Peel Session)

Broadcast on 24 July 1978, some four months before the 7″ single was released.

Happy Listening.

JC

Mt. Doubt

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #518: MT. DOUBT

Mt. Doubt first appeared on the scene back in 2015, thanks to a ten-song self-released CD. It began as a solo project by Edinburgh-based singer/songwriter Leo Bargery, but in subsequent years, would expand to a collective of musicians who would come-and-go depending on their own availability or commitments to other bands.

There have been two further albums – In Awe Of Nothing (2016) and Doubtlands (2020). The former originally came out on Scottish Fiction Records, but was later given a repress by Last Night From Glasgow, which was also the label on which Doubtlands was released. There’s also been a handful of singles and EPs issued by both labels.

The music, certainly on the latter two albums, is often dark and brooding, perfectly suited to Leo’s baritone voice, which has been compared by some to Matt Berninger of The National.

mp3: Mt. Doubt – Stairwell Songs

One of the many enjoyable songs to be found on Doubtlands

JC

Arctic Monkeys

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (49) : Arctic Monkeys – Crying Lightning

Arctic Monkeys featured previously in this 7″ nostalgia fest. On that occasion, it was Brianstorm, the lead-off single from their second album, Favourite Worst Nightmare. I feel I can just about repeat the opening two paras:-

“Fair play to Arctic Monkeys who indicated well in advance of any new material that they weren’t going to be content with simply regurgitating the indie-sounds of their 2006 debut album and 2007 sophomore album, and the various hit singles they had spawned.

But I don’t think anyone was fully prepared for the lead-off single for the third album.”

mp3: Arctic Monkeys – Crying Lightning

The band had more or less taken 2008 off with singer/songwriter Alex Turner embarking on his side project The Last Shadow Puppets. It was then announced that Arctic Monkeys third album would be recorded in the USA and that hard-rocking Josh Homme, best known as the frontman of Queens of The Stone Age, would be taking on production duties. The indie kids must have been trembling in fear.

The internet now recalls that the song was given its debut on 6 July 2009 on a Radio 1 show hosted by Zane Lowe, one of the band’s earliest and loudest champions, and made available that same day as an iTunes download the same day. It was well different from what had come before, with the opening few bars in particular being as hard or as stoner as anything Homme was normally associated with. It was a bold move, and with the benefit of hindsight, can be seen as laying the foundations for the band to constantly shift and shape change with each passing year and new album with Alex Turner determined never to be accused of either resting on his laurels or being a one-trick pony.

The band advised that the single wouldn’t be available in any physical format until mid-August, some seven days ahead of the new album, which was to be called Humbug. It was also revealed that the vinyl would be a limited run and only available via charity shops run by Oxfam.

The downloads alone in the first week took Crying Lightning into the singles chart at #12. It fell back down the chart over the next few weeks, dropping to #72 before jumping back up again to #45 in the week that vinyl was released.

The b-side was a blistering and unexpected cover:-

mp3: Arctic Monkeys – Red Right Hand

Four years prior to Nick Cave‘s song becoming really well known thanks to its association with the TV drama series Peaky Blinders.

My copy of the 7″ single is second-hand and was bought at least five years later. I got it from a charity shop on the south side of Glasgow, close to Villain Towers, but not Oxfam. There was no sticker on the front of the sleeve, and from memory I paid £5.

JC

Kilgore Trout, Laugh, Nightingales, Television Personalities

C86 : THE ULTIMATE SERIES (Parts 71, 72, 73, and 74 of 114)

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.

mp3: Paul McCartney – Laugh

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.

JC

Drugstore

SONGS UNDER TWO MINUTES (26): SUPER GLIDER

As mentioned previously, Drugstore were around for much of the 90s, formed in London but with a Brazilian born singer-songwriter in the shape of Isabel Monteiro. The band were one of those who always made for an interesting opening act and so fans of the likes of Radiohead, Tindersticks, Jeff Buckley and The Jesus and Mary Chain would have had opportunities to catch them.

My introduction to the band would have come from this song, just 1:33 in length, being included on a compilation CD:-

mp3: Drugstore – Super Glider (Volume 11 version)

A vocal delivery that is very reminiscent of Hope Sandoval.

It is lifted from Volume which was a magazine in the form of a series of compact disc compilation albums that were published in the UK in the early to mid 1990s. The albums typically contained exclusive tracks and remixes from a diverse range of indie artists. Each album was packaged with a 192-page booklet that contained features on the artists, and original articles. The booklet was the size and shape of a CD jewel case, and was usually packaged with the CD case in a cardboard sleeve. Volume One, the first issue, was published in September 1991. The series came to an end in January 1997, with Volume Seventeen.

Super Gilder was the opening track on Volume 11, which was published in August 1994. A longer version of the song would appear on Drugstore’s eponymous debut, released in March 1995.

mp3: Drugstore – Super Glider

A case could be made to suggest that this could be defined as one of the great lost songs of the era.

JC

Whipping Boy

THE CULT CLASSICS :THE RE-RUNS (6)

26 January 2014. This came from SWC who keeps us all informed and amused on a daily basis over at No Badger Required.

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Not released on an indie label but very much an indie band.

Whipping Boy formed in Dublin in 1988 and started out in life as a Fall covers band. In 1992 they released their first album Submarine and then signed to the Columbia label. In 1995 they came to the attention of a wider audience with the release of Heartworm their second album.

It is from this that We Don’t Need Nobody Else was taken. It’s a brutal episode of love, betrayal and heartbreak with singer Fergal McKee at first speaking over the wall of guitars in the back ground, then getting angrier and angrier. There is one verse in the song that makes your hairs stand up on end and genuinely made me shiver it’s the bit where Mckee says

“I hit you for the first time today, I didn’t mean to It just happened You wouldn’t let me go to the phone, you wanted to make love and I did not Now I know the distance between us Christ we weren’t even fighting, I was just annoyed”

Is it misogynist? No, well probably not. What it is, is a raw and emotional account of a love lost. Follow the song through, you’ll understand. Listen to A Natural, the very last (hidden) track on Heartworm, and it all becomes very clear, well it did to me. To me, this identified how music can be a very powerful thing, in fact it can tear your heart out whilst you sing along. Lyrically this song is as beautiful as anything I have ever listened to, and yet they are not the household names they should be.

mp3 : Whipping Boy – We Don’t Need Nobody Else
mp3 : Whipping Boy – A Natural

Is it a cult classic? Yes it’s the very definition of a cult classic, it scraped the Top Fifty. The album is better received now than it was 19 (now 31) years ago. The band had very little success when perhaps they should have been megastars, Heartworm was recently voted one of the greatest Irish Albums of all time, I would lose the word ‘Irish’ there myself.

S-WC

Various

IT’S A NUMBERS THING…

mp3: Various – It’s A Numbers Thing

Someone’s Calling – Modern English (Track 1 from the album After The Snow)
Today’s Lesson – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (Track 2 from the album Dig Lazarus Dig)
Venus As A Boy – Bjork (Track 3 from the album Debut)
Pump It Up – Elvis Costello & The Attractions (Track 4 from the album This Year’s Model)
Fluorescent Adolescent – Arctic Monkeys (Track 5 from the album Favourite Worst Nightmare)
Loved – Follytechnic Music Library (Track 6 from the album Ordered 81-85)
How Could I Be Wrong – The Auteurs (Track 7 from the album New Wave)
Death Of A Party – Blur (Track 8 from the album Blur)
Sports Car – The Wedding Present (Track 9 from the album Locked Down and Stripped Back)
This Is Love – PJ Harvey (Track 10 from the album Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea)
Videograms – The Twilight Sad (Track 11 from the album It Won/t Be Like This All The Time)
Take The Skinheads Bowling – Camper Van Beethoven (Track 12 from the album Telephone Free Landslide Victory)
Swerving The Checkatrade – Half Man Half Biscuit (Track 13 from the album No One Cares About Your Creative Hub So Get Your Fuckin’ Hedge Cut)
Never Here – Elastica (Track 14 from the album Elastica)
Mr E’s Beautiful Blues – Eels (Track 15 from the album Daisies of The Galaxy)
Sweet and Tender Hooligan – Nouvelle Vague (Track 16 from the album Bande a Part)

JC

#magazine45s

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF MAGAZINE (2)

Touch and Go (VS 207) : Released April 1978 on 7″

This was previously posted on 5 November 2019 with the title ‘THE BARELY REMEMBERED SOPHOMORE SINGLE’

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A previous instalment of the cracking debut singles series enabled the spotlight to be put on Magazine and the quite majestic Shot By Both Sides, released in January 1978.

It would be a further five months before the debut album, Real Life, hit the shops, comprising just nine tracks, one of which was a re-recording of Shot…., but noticeably absent was the single the band had released in the intervening period.

mp3 : Magazine – Touch and Go

It’s very much a song of its era, relying heavily throughout on the new wave guitar work of John McGeoch while Barry Adamson on bass and Martin Jackson on drums provide ample support as the rhythm section. And of course, there’s the unmistakable whining vocal delivery of Howard Devoto, seemingly almost breathless at trying to keep up with the relentless pace of the playing. It’s almost as if Dave Formula’s dainty keyboard solo, which comes in at exactly halfway through the song, is there to enable the vocalist to get a second wind.

Touch and Go isn’t a bad song. It’s big problem is that it is a very long way removed from the brilliance of the debut 45 and it didn’t have enough going for it to make it stand out among the other post-punk singles that were being released in 1978. It’s also quite unlike the other songs that Magazine were beginning to write and record – compare for instance with the opening track on said debut album:-

mp3 : Magazine – Definitive Gaze

I recently came across a review of Definitive Gaze that described it perfectly – ‘it switches between a sci-fi love theme and the score for a chase scene’ (Andy Kellman, allmusic). Touch and Go feels lumpen and unimaginative in comparison, and while there was ample space for it to be included on the debut album, it was a wise decision to cast it aside.

The b-side to the 7” was a real hoot:-

mp3 : Magazine – Goldfinger

Yup…..a cover of the theme tune to the James Bond movie as penned by John Barry and sung by Shirley Bassey. It’s almost as if Howie & co are auditioning for the right to compose and perform the next again Bond movie. The thing is, they would have certainly done a better job than what was used in the 1979 movie in the series – can anyone, without looking it up, recall what Moonraker sounded like?

Fun fact pop-pickers.

Despite being one of the most instantly recognisable of the Bond theme songs, Goldfinger only got as high as #21 in the UK singles charts in 1964, albeit it performed better in the USA by hitting the Top 10.

In fact, only one James Bond theme song has ever reached #1 in the UK. And very surprisingly, that accolade belongs to Sam Smith and his rendition of Writing’s On The Wall, which was written for Spectre in 2015.

Every day is a school day round here…………

JC

Mount Vernon Arts Lab

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #517: MOUNT VERNON ARTS LAB

I’ve only one song by Mount Vernon Arts Lab in the collection, and it comes courtesy of its inclusion on the compilation album Bentism that was released in 1999 by Creeping Bent Records.

Here’s some abridged stuff from wiki:-

Mount Vernon Arts Lab is a musical project of Drew Mulholland.

Taking inspiration from Joe Meek, and from Daniel Miller’s work as The Normal, Mulholland began creating avant-garde/post-rock recordings in 1996, and soon found the support of independent labels such as Via Satellite and Earworm, who between them issued a series of vinyl-only releases during 1997 and 1998. Mulholland used a range of electronic and acoustic instruments including Moog synthesizers, theremin, and a specially-built unit which he calls a “Turbine Generator” The debut mini-album, Gummy Twinkle, was issued in September 1998, featuring guest appearances from Pete Kember (a.k.a. Sonic Boom) and Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub.

He then signed a deal with Ochre Records, who issued his second mini-set, a collaboration with Adrian Utley of Portishead, featuring a single 23-minute track, “Warminster”. A second mini-set followed for Ochre, this time recorded 100 feet below ground in the abandoned nuclear bunker at Troywood. A final album as Mount Vernon Arts Lab was released in 2001 on Via Satellite; The Séance at Hobs Lane and featured guest appearances from Blake, Utley, Isobel Campbell, and Barry 7 (of Add N to (X).

mp3: Mount Vernon Arts Lab – Bad Vibrations

Not specified in the wiki entry was that in 1997, there had been a contribution to edition #5 of the Creeping Bent Singles Club, supplying one side of a 7″ single with the other being courtesy of Future Pilot A.K.A. vs. Alan Vega / Revolutionary Corps Of Teenage Jesus. It was the same track later included on the Bentism compilation.