Jasmine Minks – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

Fall, Jasmine Minks, Replacements, This Mortal Coil

WHEN THE CLOCKS STRUCK THIRTEEN (August Pt 2)

You should know the drill by now. I dip into the 1000+ pages of my big red indie songs bible (big thanks to author Martin Strong) and look to see what flop* but fantastic singles were released in August 1984

*didn’t reach the Top 75 of the UK singles charts.

Here’s a few words I previously typed out about the first song up this month:-

“Let’s get a misconception about this one right out of the way. C.R.E.E.P. is not about recently departed band member, Marc Riley.

Brix Smith‘s book, The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise (2016) devotes a few paragraphs to the song, saying that she was excited by it, not least as she provides ‘bratty backing vocals that contested well with the darkness of The Fall’, and firmly believed it had a chance of cracking the singles chart. She also explains that the lyrics were aimed at another of the many hundreds of individuals who had upset Mark E Smith somewhere along the way, a German tour manager by the name of Scumech, whose name was turned into scum-egg as part of the lyric.

A bit of investigatory work by fans of the band later unearthed that the man in question was most likely Scumeck Sabottka, who would later make a fortune as the founder of one of the biggest online ticketing agencies in Germany – and looking at some of the photos of the man that can be found online, he does look something of a peace-loving, trendy wretch who was fond of ABC. It would appear therefore that MES never gave him the look of love….”

mp3: The Fall – C.R.E.E.P.

The Jasmine Minks, from Aberdeen, released their second single of the year, again on the newly emerging label of Creation Records. This one has the catalogue number of CRE 008:-

mp3: The Jasmine Minks – Where The Traffic Goes

I’ll admit that I missed this completely back in the day, finally getting it onto the hard drive via a second-hand copy of the album Sunset many years later.

mp3: The Replacements – I Will Dare

I’ve never taken to The Replacements, but given the paucity of singles this month (did indie labels close down for the month??), I thought I best add them.

mp3: This Mortal Coil – Kangaroo

The collective had enjoyed a minor hit some twelve months earlier when Elizabeth Fraser & Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins released a majestic cover of Song To The Siren. Neither were involved this time around. The vocals are courtesy of Gordon Sharp, who has had a few mentions elsewhere on the blog as a member of The Freeze and Cindytalk.

And that’s it for this month. Sorry.

The good news is that having very slowly gone through the big book and come up next to nothing for August, I noticed along the way that September will be a bumper month.

JC

Crispy Ambulance, Danse Society, Felt, Jasmine Minks, Jazz Butcher, Lou Reed, Pale Fountains, Pastels, R.E.M., Wake

WHEN THE CLOCKS STRUCK THIRTEEN (March Pt 3)

This would normally be Part 2 from March 1984, but I did of course, a few weeks back, spread the chart hits across two days worth of posts.

This is the usual half of the series looking at singles which failed to find much popularity with the record-purchasing public, but have proven to be of enough cultural significance to be recalled here on the blog.

mp3 : Crispy Ambulance – Sexus

A Manchester band who signed to Factory Records, albeit the two of their three singles and one album recorded and released between 1981 and 1984 came out on Factory Benelux, the Belgian imprint of the label. Sexus was issued only on 12″ vinyl and is atypical of the band’s sound…..which many at the time (myself included) thought was too much like a cut-price early Joy Division in the days before Martin Hannett added his box of tricks to the sound. Indeed, lead singer Alan Hempsall stood in for Ian Curtis when he wasn’t well enough to perform the opening numbers of the set at what is now a very infamous gig in Bury on 8 April 1980, which ended in a riot among the audience and the band.

mp3: Danse Society – 2000 Light Years From Home

I’ve mentioned in earlier editions of this series that 1984 was a year in which goth, or variations of the genre, seemed to be everywhere. Danse Society were from Barnsley, a blue-collar town in the north of England who formed in 1980 and by 1983 had signed with the major label, Arista Records. The album Heaven Is Waiting, released in December 1983, had gone Top 40, but the subsequent release of this Rolling Stones cover, one which came with a touch of dance, made no impact on the singles chart.

mp3: Felt – Mexican Bandits

Felt may well have been a band, but to all intent and purposes it was the name under which the Birmingham-born Lawrence Hayward recorded and performed (albeit he never used his surname). Signed to Cherry Red in 1981, there had already been two albums and four singles, all of which were critically acclaimed prior to Mexican Bandits which, like its predecessor 45s, would reach the indie chart but not come close to the mainstream chart. But this really suited Lawrence who didn’t seem to want fame and all the hassle that comes with it.

mp3: Jasmine Minks – Think!

Originally from Aberdeen in north-east Scotland, the four-piece band relocated to London and signed to Creation Records, becoming a key part of that label’s early output and live scene centred around venues in central London. Think! was the debut single, with the catalogue number of CRE 004, and it’s a belter. In a previous mention of this 45, I said that I was waiting on either Edwyn Collins or James Kirk to start singing after that initial 20-second burst of energy.

mp3: Jazz Butcher – Marnie

The late Pat Fish (he passed away in October 2021 at the age of 63) was the one constant factor in the ever-changing line-up of Jazz Butcher. The first single and album had come out in the Autumn of 1983, and Marnie, issued through the London-based indie Glass Records, was the first of the new material. For more on the life and times of Pat Fish, I’d like to refer you to the Friend of Rachel Worth’s wonderfully written guest ICA from back in March 2108.

mp3: The Pastels – Something Going On

Formed in Glasgow in 1982. This was the band’s fourth single, but their first for Creation (it had the catalogue number of CRE 005). Still very much on the go today, and while they have never had any meaningful commercial success, they have long been one of the most important and influential band to emerge from my home city given how much advice and support they have given to others who have come along in the subsequent decades.

mp3: Lou Reed – I Love You Suzanne

Don’t think any background info is required. The sole single issued in support of his thirteenth studio album, New Sensations.

mp3: R.E.M. – So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)

Don’t think any background info is required. The band’s third ever 45, and the advance single for their second album, Reckoning, Still sounds immense 40 years on.

mp3: The Pale Fountains – (Don’t Let Your Love) Start A War

See the January edition (Part 2) of this series for the background on The Pale Fountains. I hope you’ll agree, it’s turning out to be a great month for flop singles……

mp3: The Wake – Talk About The Past

A Glasgow-band who signed to Factory Records. Probably best known for the fact that Bobby Gillespie was their bassist for a while, he had been involved in the debut album Harmony (1982) and the later single Something Outside (1983). By the time Talk About The Past (FAC 88) was released, he’d been asked to leave.

Happy listening.

JC

Jasmine Minks

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #041

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#041– The Jasmine Minks – ‘Cold Heart’ (Creation Records ’86)

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Hello friends,

let’s be honest: we all loved Creation Records, didn’t we? I mean, come on: The Jesus & Mary Chain, Oasis, Primal Scream …. all the big names, ey? But you have to be a) really old or b) a real nerd or c) both in order to remember Creation’s beginnings – and the handful of bands the label started with: Biff Bang Pow!, The Legend, Revolving Paint Dream, The Pastels (which Creation bought from Rough Trade) … and a Jam-influenced four piece from Aberdeen: The Jasmine Minks.

The Jasmine Minks released their first single (‘Think!’) and also their first mini album in 1984, the album being only the third one for Creation to put out, in fact. Only shortly before that just 700 singles had been pressed for The Legend, Primal Scream and The Jasmine Minks, quite a contrast to 1995, when 15 million copies of Oasis’ ‘(What’s The Story) Morning Glory’ were issued.

Alan McGee, Creation’s boss, once said that those beginnings set the scene for Oasis’ success. Obviously this has to be taken with a pinch of salt, but nevertheless The Jasmine Minks’ importance should not be under-estimated, I think: after all The Jesus & Mary Chain borrowed The Minks’ equipment for recording their debut single, ‘Upside Down’ … so let’s just imagine a world without The Mary Chain in case The Jasmine Minks hadn’t been so generous back then.

In October 1984, the band went on tour with The Jesus and Mary Chain and Biff Bang Pow!, and they must have had heavy nights by all accounts, due to The Jesus & Mary Chain being, well, The Jesus & Mary Chain: “when the Jasmines went on (stage)’, relates Adam Sanderson, one of their two frontmen, ‘Jim [Shepherd] and I kept turning our backs to the audience during instrumental parts, in a synchronized way like the anti-Shadows.’ This was no dance routine. Sanderson had a claw hammer in his back pocket, Shepherd a steel pipe, and they wanted the crowd to know it.

Still, to be honest though, as you might have gathered, The Mary Chain stole the show, by and large. It is hard to say whether The Jasmine Minks already disappeared from people’s radar that early, or whether this came a bit later. The thing is, you see: they always were true to themselves and their style (60-s influenced, but most of the time rough as fuck) – but alas it was a style which didn’t meet with the approval of all too many. This certainly came to light when their second (self-titled/’proper’) album was released in 1986, one could argue that they already were a year or so out of date at that time.

The album isn’t ‘bad’, you see – if you find it somewhere for a reasonable price you should get it, that’s my recommendation. Then again all you need to have is this, the only single from the album, and what a bloody masterpiece it is, and always has been for the last 37 years – at least in our house – I cannot find the right words to say how much I love this single:

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mp3: The Jasmine Minks – Cold Heart

Now, whatever became of Creation Records, you might all be wondering? Well, McGee ceased operations in 1999, only to create the Poptones Label one year later. When its shares were listed on the Alternative Investment Market that summer, Poptones was valued as high as 17 million British Pounds. Among those hurrying to acquire a GBP 50.000 stake in McGee’s multimedia future was the Queen of England.

Nine months later, the acts on Poptones’ roster included a 40-year-old former rhythm guitarist in the Undertones, an Elvis Presley impersonator from Los Angeles … and the Jasmine Minks. So there you are.

Take good care,

Dirk

JC ADDS…….

The Jasmine Minks have just released a brand-new album on the Last Night From Glasgow label. Click here for info.

Jasmine Minks

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #156 : THE JASMINE MINKS

It’s just over four years since the only previous occasion The Jasmine Minks featured – it was a reasonably comprehensive feature as part of the look at the tracks on CD86…..I’ll just cu’n’paste from it:-

One of the best tracks on CD86 is Cut Me Deep by The Jasmine Minks. However, it is a bit of a cheat that it is included as the song wasn’t released until 1988 as a track on Another Age, an LP that came out on Creation Records which was of course a central part of the C86 movement.

By this point in time, the band – originally from Aberdeen – had been with the label for four years and in an effort to become pop stars had relocated to London. Sadly, they were just one of many talented bands from the era who never made the breakthrough and they disbanded before the decade was over, suffering in part from Alan McGhee‘s preoccupation with the Jesus and Mary Chain which meant all the other bands on his roster took a seat away at the very back of the room.

The lead vocal on Cut Me Deep is courtesy of Jim Shepherd who had only taken on that role on the departure in 1986 of one of the other founder-members of the band Adam Sanderson. It was Sanderson who sang on what turned out to be the band’s best-selling single, Cold Heart, released in April 1986 and also available on their self-titled debut LP released a couple of months later.

The Jasmine Minks reunited in 2000, releasing the album Veritas, before the band signed to McGee’s Poptones label for the release of Popartglory (2001) and then after another lengthy hiatus, 4 track EP, Poppy White, was released on the Oatcake Records label in 2012 the same year they appeared at the 2012 Indietracks festival in the original 1984 lineup.

In 2014, the band celebrated their 30th anniversary with the release of Cut Me Deep – The Anthology 1984 – 2014 with 48 tracks spread over 2 x CDs.

2019 update

Unsurprisingly, The Jasmine Minks are one of the 115 acts to be include on the recently issued Big Gold Dreams boxset, courtesy of Cherry Red Record. The words ‘a frenetic roar of intent’ were used to describe this, their 1984 debut on Creation Records:-

mp3 : The Jasmine Minks – Think!

I was waiting on either Edwyn Collins or James Kirk to start singing after that inital 20-second burst of energy. Can’t understand why I can’t recall hearing this back in the day and why I didn’t seek it out.

I’ve tracked down the more than decent b-side:-

mp3 : The Jasmine Minks – Work For Nothing

JC

Jasmine Minks

NEXT YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Part 2 of 48)

A couple of weeks back, a reader from France left behind a very complimentary comment about the blog and in doing so said:-

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems my friends The Jasmine Minks haven’t been awarded yet the prestigious Saturday’s Scottish Single slot. I’m sure their time will come…!”

I did get back with the explanation that as I didn’t own any 45s by the band that they hadn’t been featured in that particular series but that I had a plan for an upcoming posting…and this is it.

mp3 : The Jasmine Minks – Cut Me Deep

The lead vocal on Cut Me Deep is courtesy of Jim Shepherd who had only taken on that role on the departure in 1986 of one of the other founder-members of the band Adam Sanderson. It was Sanderson who sang on what turned out to be the band’s best-selling single released in April 1986 and also available on their self-titled debut LP released a couple of months later:-

mp3 : The Jasmine Minks – Cold Heart

This time last year, the band celebrated their 30th anniversary with the release of Cut Me Deep – The Anthology 1984 – 2014 with 48 tracks spread over 2 x CDs.

Enjoy