Raw Herbs – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

Lawrence & The Comfortable Society, Love Act, Mighty Lemon Drops, Pigbros, Raw Herbs

C86 : THE ULTIMATE SERIES (Parts 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 of 114)

The Mighty Lemon Drops formed in Wolverhampton and were active from 1985 to 1992, releasing twelve singles (three of which reached the Top 75) and five albums (two of which went Top 60), having been picked up quickly by a major label impressed by a self-recorded cassette and a debut single. Their ascent was rapid, but they never quite delivered on the hopes or expectations of their label executives.

The cassette had initially been sold at gigs and then made available via mail order. By the end of 1985, and after just a few months playing together, recorded a single for Dreamworld Records, the new name of the former Whaam! Records that had been set up back in 1981 by Dan Treacy of The Television Personalities.

Said single, Like An Angel, led to an offer from Geoff Travis, head of Rough Trade Records, to sign for the label Blue Guitar, an offshoot of Chrysalis Records, and which was supposed to operate like an indie. At the same time, the band was asked to sign for Sire Records for the USA market. While all this was going on, they recorded this:-

mp3: Happy Head – Mighty Lemon Drops

Track 2 on side 1 of the C86 cassette; Track 2, Disc One of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition.

The song would later be re-recorded for the debut album, also called Happy Head, and which reached #58 on its release in October 1986.

The rest of the Mighty Lemon Drops story will be told when they next appear in this series,

The Raw Herbs were from London, and they released four singles between 1986 and 1988, the first three of which were on Medium Cool Records, a London-based label that was home to quite a number of bands associated with the C86 movement. Their final single, The Second Time, was issued on Rooster Records, which must have been their own label, as there was never anything else released on that imprint:-

mp3: He Blows In – The Raw Herbs

Track 12, Disc 1 of CD86.

He Blows In was actually the b-side of that final single.

I suppose that if you only release one single in your existence and years later one of its two songs makes it onto a 3CD compilation which sells in decent numbers, then that’s got to be considered a decent outcome:-

mp3: Heartache – Lawrence & The Comfortable Society

Track 14, Disc Three of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition.

A self-released single, not even on any sort of recognised label, back in 1986. Heartache was actually the b-side of the single. There’s not much about Lawrence & The Comfortable Society out there, but the info on the back of the sleeve gives the names of the five musicians as well as a contact telephone number.

Pigbros, from Birmingham, formed in 1984 and broke up in 1988. Their debut release, The Blubberhouses EP, came out in 1985 on the Blackpool-based Vinyl Drip Records, that had been founded by John Robb of The Membranes (who were featured a little earlier on in this series).

mp3: Hedonist Hat – Pigbros

Track 14, Disc Two of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition.

This was the lead track on The Blubberhouses EP. Pigbros would later release three more singles and one album on the little-known and short-lived Cake Records, as well as recording two sessions for John Peel.

The fact that I’m reduced to using the image for the C86 boxset should be a good indication of how little there is out there on this lot:-

mp3: Hep Clothes – The Love Act

Track 24, Disc Three of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition.

There are no singles or albums by The Love Act on Discogs. Their only other appearance other than the boxset is on a live compilation album called Communicate!!! Live At Thames Poly, which was released on the Thames Poly Students Union label in 1985. Their contribution was Hep Clothes.

However, one of the band members was Nicholas Wroe, who later became a journalist. In 2014, when the boxset was released, he penned a piece in The Guardian in which he explained that, out of the blue, he was contacted and asked if he has been a member of The Love Act. It turned out that Neil Taylor, the ex-NME journalist who was helping to oversee the boxset on Cherry Red Records, remembered the band from back in the day and wanted to include them.

In all honesty, I don’t know why he bothered, as it’s absolute rubbish. But at least it’s over in less than 100 seconds.

JC

Raw Herbs

NEXT YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Part 10 of 48)

The Raw Herbs were a four-piece London band who released most of their material in what was a very brief career on Medium Cool, a Manchester-based label. The members were Derek Parker (vocals, guitar), Kevin Bache (guitar), Steven Archibald (bass), and Brian Alexis (drums).

There were just four singles during their two-year existence between 1986 and 1988 but they were regarded highly enough to also score a Radio 1 session for Janice Long who, at the time, broadcast in the early evening slot. The track on CD86 is in fact a b-side from their final single recorded for Rooster Records which, as far as I can tell, was their own label as I haven’t been able to find anything else released on that particular imprint:-

mp3 : The Raw Herbs – He Blows In

I’ve been able to track down the A-side of the 45:-

mp3 : The Raw Herbs – The Second Time

They’re decent enough quality indie-pop without being ground-breaking. And the a-side is better than the track included on CD86.

The lead singer went on to be part of a group called Horse Latitudes who, in 1990, released an LP entitled September Songs on Cherry Red Records. This particular band should, on no account be confused with a more recent combo using the same name – they are a death metal outfit from Finland and about as far removed from the C86 sounds as imaginable.

I’ve also learned that the drummer died in 2011 after suffering a deep-vein thrombosis.

Here’s a link to a fan site.

Raw Herbs

CULT CLASSICS – ‘SHE’S A NURSE…’ by THE RAW HERBS

Dear JC,

The news that you’ve run out of contributions for your Cult classics feature has finally spurred me into penning a few words (I thought you’d be inundated so I kept putting it off) – I hope you can still find room for it. Keep up the good work!

Misterprime

I first came across The Raw Herbs’ excellent single ‘She’s a Nurse’ on a compilation cassette called ‘Strum ‘n’ Drum’ given away with the short-lived indie magazine ‘Underground’ in, I think, 1987 and it remained, as far as I was concerned, a tantalising one-off until such a time as the internet came along and allowed all of us sad, anoraky types to finally chase down some of our little accumulated musical obsessions.

Apparently this East London band were only with us for a few short years in the late eighties before disappearing, as is the way, into the musical ether, despite having seemingly impeccable indie credentials: their first single, ‘Old Joe’, was a flexi disc and their third, ‘Don’t Bury Me Yet’, cracked the indie top twenty, both were on Manchester’s Medium Cool label. Unfortunately the fourth single – a 12″ entitled ‘The Second Time’ on their own Rooster Records – was also their last and, apart from a Janice Long Session and a few other oddments that you can pick up trawling the net, that’s the band’s whole slim legacy.

That said, all of their releases display in fine style that trademark eighties-indiepop jangle offset perfectly with a beautifully yearning, slightly braying vibrato vocal and occasional touches of harmonica, banjo and fiddle suggesting wider horizons and a possible interest in the country-twang of early ramshackle rock’n’roll.

‘She’s a Nurse…’ was the band’s second single (as more mathematically minded readers may already have deduced) and is narrowly the pick of the bunch, heralded by a propulsive harmonica-led twanging intro and coming on like a less cocksure, more Sarah Records version of the La’s, with vocalist Derek Parker seemingly unable to believe his own good fortune – not only is she a nurse, but “…she’s alright!” The Medium Cool singles were available as downloads on Amazon last time I looked (‘So Wired’, the languid b-side to ‘She’s a Nurse’, makes up a pitch-perfect 7″ package) and recent inclusions on the CD86 (‘He’s Blown In’, a ‘Second Time’ b-side )and ‘Scared To Get Happy’ (‘…Nurse’) compilations would seem to indicate that I’m not the only person who still remembers them.

All that’s needed now is for someone at LTM or Cherry Red to licence the whole catalogue and issue it on one handy-sized CD compilation – that’s an album that I already rank, in imaginary form, in my indiepop Top Ten, along with the likes of ‘Stardust’ by the Sea Urchins, ‘Snowball’ by the Field Mice, ‘Lyceum’ by the Orchids, Another Sunny Day’s ‘London Weekend’ or the Popguns’ ‘Snog.’

mp3 : The Raw Herbs – She’s A Nurse But She’s Alright

JC adds….anyone else that wants to submit a cult single and keep the Moz series at bay is more than welcome to drop me a line.