October 1984. As we have previously seen, a seriously underwhelming month in respect of decent songs making the Top 75 of the UK singles chart. Hopefully, the indie labels offered up a few things that were more palatable.
mp3: The Brilliant Corners – My Baby’s In Black
The third single of the year from one of Bristol’s finest ever combos. Commercial success would evade them throughout their career, which lasted until 1993. Lead singer and principal songwriter Davey Woodward is still very much on the go today, and his latest album Mumbo In The Jumbo, which is a very fine collection of tunes, was released earlier this year on Last Night From Glasgow. Click here for more info.
mp3: Dali’s Car – The Judgement Is The Mirror
This should have actually appeared in the chart show edition of this series, as it had come in at #69 in the final week of October before peaking at #66. Big things were expected of Dali’s Car, whose three members were Pete Murphy, Mick Karn and Paul Vincent Lawford, with the first two named having been in Bauhaus and Japan, respectively. But they split after this, their only single, as well as subsequent album The Waking hour, sold poorly.
mp3: Devo – Are You Experienced?
In which the American new-wavers offer their take on a 1967 song written and recorded by Jimi Hendrix. And here was me thinking that their earlier 1977 take on Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones offered a different take on the original….
The Fall again defy convention by insisting that the record label, Beggars Banquet, issue a new album along with a new single. But not just in any bog-standard way, as the new single was to come out on 12″ vinyl, accompanied by a free 7″ single. The new album was called The Wonderful and Frightening World Of….and it contained nine tracks with a running time of just over 40 minutes.
The 12″ goes by the title Call For Escape Route, and contains three songs – Draygo’s Guilt, No Bulbs and Clear Off!. The bonus 7″ contains No Bulbs 3 and Slang King. I could happily have selected any of the five songs, but in the end No Bulbs 3 won out in what was a lucky draw. The full version of No Bulbs extends to a few seconds short of eight minutes while the edited down version, given the title of No Bulbs 3, is around four-and-a-half minutes long.
mp3: Hurrah! – Who’d Have Thought
One of the first bands to sign to Kitchenware Records, this was their third single for the label, and it made it to #7 in the Indie Chart. It’s kind of indie-by-numbers and quite different from their better known label mates Prefab Sprout, The Daintees and The Kane Gang. I saw them a few times back in the day, and while I really wanted to fall for their charms as I loved the label they were on, they never quite ticked all my boxes.
mp3: The Men They Couldn’t Hang – The Green Fields of France
A folk/punk band who kind of emerged from the busking scene. They were initially closely aligned with The Pogues, playing gigs alongside them, with bassist Shanne Bradley having been in The Nipple Erectors alongside Shane McGowan. There’s also the possibility that the group name The Men They Couldn’t Hang emerged from one of McGowan’s early ideas for what eventually became The Pogues.
The Green Fields of France was the debut single, a song written by Eric Bogle, whose And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda had earlier in the year been covered by The Pogues. It was a version much championed by John Peel, and despite being released quite late on in the year, it still gained enough votes to make #3 in the Festive Fifty of 1984, just behind How Soon Is Now? by The Smiths and Pearly Dewdrops Drop by the Cocteau Twins.
mp3: The Pastels – Million Tears
The band’s second 45 for Creation Records is a fabulous jingly-jangly number. It was released on 12″ vinyl, and copies fetch a decent price on the second-hand market these days. I don’t have a copy, sadly. Million Tears is one of two songs on the A-side of the 12″. The best-known track, at least nowadays, was tucked away on the b-side.
Running to almost 7 minutes in length, it’s a song that has featured on quite a few indie compilations over the subsequent years. An absolute gem of a track.
mp3: Yeah Yeah Noh – Beware The Weakling Lines
A band who featured on the September one-hour mix thanks to the guest posting on In Tape Records from Leon MacDuff. As Leon said, “Yeah Yeah Noh really ought to have a post to themselves at some point. Leicester’s finest musical export of the era (well OK, maybe tied with The Deep Freeze Mice), their time as an active group was brief but mighty: In Tape issued a string of EPs and a full album of their witty, lyrical lo-fi “unpop”, and their self-deprecating “Bias Binding” (“Yeah Yeah Noh, so full of ourselves / Not a real band, done no video elpee”) made JP’s Festive Fifty. They were ace.”
This was their second single of 1984, with the catalogue number of IT 010. And given I missed out back in June with their debut, and it’s catalogue number of IT 008, I’ll take this opportunity to rectify matters:-
mp3: Yeah Yeah Noh – Cottage Industry
And that, my friends, wraps things up for this month. It wasn’t too shabby, was it?
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 