Razorcuts – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

Auctioneers, Bogshed, Razorcuts, Shop Assistants

C86 : THE ULTIMATE SERIES (Parts 83, 84, 85, and 86 of 114)

Bogshed, from Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire, were active between 1984 and 1988, during which they released four singles/EPs and two albums. There were also five John Peel sessions, such was the late DJs fondness for their idiosyncratic musical style. The band’s lead singer, Phil Bryson, once explained their approach to songwriting – “We start out being totally out of order and out of key, and we turn things like that into a pop song. Most people try to do it the other way round.”

The first EP, Let Them Eat Bogshed, was issued on John Robb‘s Vinyl Drip Records in 1985 and reached #8 on the Indie Chart. They then established their own label, Shelfish Records, and all five of their later recordings would come out via that imprint.

mp3: Run To The Temple – Bogshed

Track 8, Side 1 of the C86 cassette and Track 8, Disc one of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition

Yup. Bogshed were part of the original cassette, while being as far removed from the jangly sounds of pop as can be imagined. Run To The Temple was later released on Bogshed’s debut album, a record that got to #4 on the Indie Chart in late 1986.

Razorcuts, as mentioned before, formed in London in 1984. They would break up in 1990, leaving a legacy of two flexidiscs, four singles and two albums. The third single, I Heard You First Time, released on the short-lived London label Flying Nun UK in 1987, is the one that I have more time for than most of the other songs of theirs that I know of. Sadly, it wasn’t included on either the CD86 release in 2006 or the 3CD extended take on C86 that came out in 2014. This, however, was:-

mp3: Sad Kaleidoscope – Razorcuts

Track 4, Disc Three of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition

This was actually the band’s first ever release, courtesy of being on one half of a flexidisc given away with Issue 5 of The Legend! fanzine in 1986.

The story of Shop Assistants was told last time out within Part 54 of this series.

Their third single, in 1986, was the first ever release on what was a newly-established Edinburgh label, 53rd & 3rd. It had the catalogue number of AGARR 1. AGARR was short for ‘As Good As Ramones Records’

mp3: Safety Net – Shop Assistants

Track 10, Disc 2 of CD86

It sounds just as marvellous today as it did all those years ago. It proved to be their only recording for 53rd & 3rd as Shop Assistants were grabbed by Geoff Travis and signed to the Blue Guitar/Chrysalis two-headed monster. 53rd & 3rd Records would continue through to 1992, with BMX Bandits, The Vaselines, Talulah Gosh, Beat Happening, The Pooh Sticks and The Boy Hairdressers being among the bands involved.

mp3: Scoop – The Auctioneers

Track 22, Disc Three of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition

There’s actually a bit of a feelgood story to this one.

The Auctioneers, from Southend, were active from 1985-88, but never managed to have anything released in that period. Demo tapes were worked on, live gigs, particularly across the smaller venues in London, were frequent, some of which attracted decent reviews in the music papers. There was one ‘close, but no cigar’ involvement with the record industry in 1988, but when it finally did amount to nothing, the band called it a day.

Their manager, Darrall Knight, kept copies of all the various recordings, and in 2011 he put a few up on YouTube and wrote a few blog posts about the band. In 2013, having heard that Cherry Red were looking for extra songs for what would become C86 The Deluxe Edition, and he sent some over to the label, of which Scoop was chosen to be slotted in.

On the back of this, Darrall contacted Firestation Records in Berlin and was delighted to hear back from the label that The Auctioneers had been on their list of bands they had been looking for more info on, having heard and liked a demo tape a few years previously.

In January 2015, Firestation Records proudly released a new CD, Before Lost and Found a 22-song collection of studio recordings, home demos, and live tracks recorded 1985–1988, with one new and final recording from 2014. At long last, The Auctioneers had made it.

JC

Darling Buds, Razorcuts, Talulah Gosh, Treebound Story

C86 : THE ULTIMATE SERIES (Parts 47, 48, 49, and 50 of 114)

Treebound Story were a four-piece band from Sheffield, active between 1986 and 1989 during which time they would release four singles, the first two in 1986 and 1987 on the locally-based Fon Records (a reminder that Fon was short for Fuck Off Nazis) and the last two for another Sheffield label, Native Records.

mp3: I Remember – Treebound Story

Track 5, Disc Three of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition

The a-side of their 1986 debut single. Perhaps the most famous fact of all around Treebound Story was that they were the first band Richard Hawley played in, when he was a teenager. Indeed, he helped write many of the band’s songs, including I Remember.

Talulah Gosh. Formed in Oxford in early 1986 and then play their first gig in the same city on 7 March. If they hadn’t been so new, there is no doubt they would have been invited to contribute a song to the C86 cassette, which was released in May 1986. As it was, they had to make do with being a band whose name and sound seem to be everything the movement/scene/genre became known for.

Before the year was out, they would release two singles on the Edinburgh-based 53rd & 3rd Records, and record a session for the Janice Long Show on BBC Radio 1. In 1987, there were two more singles on 53rd & 3rd, followed by one more in 1988, as well as a session for John Peel.

And that was it. It really is quite the thing that the band have become synonymous with C86, when there were just the 14 songs across five singles (some were only available on the 12″ versions).

mp3: I Told You So – Talulah Gosh

Track 13, Disc Two of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition

A song that was never included on any of the singles but had appeared on a flexidisc, given away with two fanzines, Are You Scared To Get Happy? and Trout Fishing In Leytonstone, in early 1987.

That this is the next song in the alphabetical run through is quite fortuitous

mp3: I’ll Still Be There – Razorcuts

Track 22, Disc 1 of CD86.

Razorcuts were the band on the other side of the 1987 flexidisc on which the Talulah Gosh song featured.

They had formed in London in 1984, but it took two years before a debut single, Big Pink Cake, was recorded, which was released by the Bristol-based The Subway Organisation. The song which Bob Stanley chose for the CD86 compilation was its b-side. I’ve already gone on record, back in 2015, as saying I disliked the song on account of a dreadful substandard vocal performance that borders on the unlistenable.

But I did offer up an alternative viewpoint on a later Razorcuts song which I’ll also say a little more about when the band make a second appearance in this series.

The Darling Buds, from Newport in Wales, formed in 1986, split up in 1993, briefly reformed for a first time in 2010, and then for a second time in 2013 and are still very much on the go today.

Their first single was a self-released double-A side, recorded in June 1986 and released in February 1987 with a pressing of 2000 copies:-

mp3: If I Said – The Darling Buds

Track 15, Disc 2 of CD86.

Their next two singles were released by the Sheffield-based indie label, Native Records. By now, their music was being played a fair deal on radio stations and the band was getting a lot of column inches in the UK music papers. It was no real surprise that the major labels began to show an interest – the fact the band were fronted by an attractive and young blonde female singer played its part in what has always been an industry riddled with misogyny – and they were signed by Epic Records in 1988. Ten singles followed, the first five of which charted. There were also three albums, the first of which charted. There were also regular efforts to break into the American market, but to no avail. It was hardly a huge surprise when The Darling Birds initially called it a day in 1993.

There was a new EP in 2017, but otherwise they have become a hard-working touring band, with enough folk still interested in hearing the early songs, including the minor hits issued on Epic, to make it all worthwhile.

JC

Razorcuts, Talulah Gosh

THE SHA LA LA FLEXI DISCS (002)

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Typing up all of this series in one sitting, and so I’ve no idea if there was any sort of reaction to part one. Tough luck if it doesn’t appeal to you, it’s here to stay until all eight Sha La La Records flexi discs have been featured!

The second disc was give the title ‘Who Needs The Bloody Cartel Anyway? EP‘ and given away with two different fanzines – Are You Scared to Get Happy? (Issue #3) and “Trout Fishing In Leytonstone (Issue #3). The eagle-eyed among you might have notice that the initial flexi disc was also given away with Issue 3 of Are You Scared to Get Happy?, which meant anyone parting with the 50p asking price really were picking up a musical bargain.

This one featured two bands from Oxford, neither of whom are strangers to this blog. Cut’n’paste alerts!!

mp3: Talulah Gosh – I Told You So

Talulah Gosh were a five-piece group from Oxford consisting originally of Amelia Fletcher (vocals, guitar) Mathew Fletcher (drums), Peter Momtchiloff (lead guitar), Rob Pursey (bass) and Elizabeth Price (vocals), although Pursey would depart after just three gigs to be replaced by Chris Scott. They signed to the Edinburgh-based 53rd & 3rd label, but their blend of the Velvet Underground and 60s style girl pop groups divided opinion. There were some who saw them as amateurishly pretentious while others thought this was a great leap forward for pop music with an indie bent. They broke up in 1988.

mp3: Razorcuts – Sad Kaleidoscope

Razorcuts formed in 1985 with the mainstays being Gregory Webster (vocals/guitar) and Tim Vass (bass) augmented at times by various drummers and other musicians who came and went. After a couple of singles on the Subway Organisation label and a one-off on Flying Nun Records, they ended up signing to Creation in 1988 for whom they would release two albums without setting the heather on fire. They split up in 1990.

JC

Razorcuts

SOMETIMES YOU’VE JUST GOT TO HOLD YOUR HANDS UP

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The above photo is of Razorcuts, as found within an insert of their second single, Sorry To Embarrass You, released by the Subway Organisation in 1986.

My first exposure to Razorcuts wasn’t a good one. It came via the inclusion of a track on the Cherry Red Records compilation CD86. The track was I’ll Still Be There, the b-side of their debut single, originally released on Subway. I wrote about it in April 2015 as part of a series looking at the 48 tracks that made up CD86, and gave it a pasting on the basis that the dreadful sub-standard vocal performance bordered on the unlistenable.

I’ve since sort of apologised by posting, in July 2019, a very positive review of I Heard You The First Time, an EP from 1987 that was issued by Creation Records.

The second part of the apology comes today.

A long train journey a few weeks back led to me giving a listen to Indiepop, a 2 x CD compilation that came out through Rough Trade in 2004 – and the source of yesterday’s song from Beat Happening. There’s also a song from Razorcuts on said compilation, the aforementioned sophomore 45:-

mp3: Razorcuts – Sorry To Embarrass You

It’s a very solid, enjoyable and catchy piece of mid-80s indie pop, albeit the vocal does occasionally verge towards being very off-key, but I suppose that all becomes part of its charm.

Here’s your b-side, all 111 seconds of it:-

mp3: Razorcuts – Summer In Your Heart

JC

Razorcuts

I HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME (but I wasn’t quite sure….)

A band named after a word in a Buzzcocks lyric and who took their inspiration from Orange Juice. Tailor-made for this blog if you ask me……

I’ll hold my hands up and say that Razorcuts were one from the C86 era that completely passed me by. I was heavily dependent on Jacques the Kipper, after the fact, for my education on the genre and this lot were never featured on any of the many lovingly-crafted homemade C90s he handed to me. I’ve picked up on them from a number of their songs being included in the numerous boxsets that era has spawned in recent years. They featured previously on the blog back in 2015 with I’ll Still Be There, a b-side to an early single lifted from the CD86 compilation issued by Cherry Red Records in which I said:-

…while it is far from a bad song – the tune is actually fine – the dreadful sub-standard vocal performance borders on the unlistenable. It is also a perfect example of the off-putting whining, struggling-to-hit-the-right notes delivery that quickly became synonymous with much of the C86 genre and which led to its rather prompt demise.

Thankfully, there’s better to be found on the later CD87 boxset which features the lead track on a EP released that year on Flying Nun Records:-

mp3 : Razorcuts – I Heard You The First Time

The reverse of the sleeve advises that the personnel were Gregory Webster (guitars, vocals), Tim Vass (bass, tambourine), David Swift (drums) and Angus Stevenson (guitars), with help from John on Hammond Organ and Yvonne on vocals.

The band was formed in 1986, in Oxford, by Webster and Vass. They had actually been friends for a number of years back in their home town of Luton but had both relocated to the university town, with Webster living with his girlfriend, Liz Price, who herself would form Talulah Gosh with Amelia Fletcher, so it really was quite the fantastic twee/indie scene for a while. Vass was a huge fan of Buzzcocks, seemingly following them all over the UK when they toured (which would also have enabled him to catch a fair number of support slots by Joy Division).

It was the emergence of Postcard Records that made the dream of a band move closer to reality. Razorcuts emerged out of an earlier attempt at recording under the name The Cinemamatics with new focus being an attempt to fuse their two biggest influences along with the 60s jangle of The Byrds, even down to the idea that Razorcuts would primarily be a singles band. Like many of their contemporaries, they got their break via the Bristol-based Subway Organisation label with two singles – Big Pink Cake and Sorry To Embarrass You – being issued in 1986. Razorcuts had an unusual approach to song writing in that the music came, for the most part, courtesy of Webster and the lyrics from Vass….but it was Webster who did the singing. They also enjoyed playing live, striking up friendships with many others in the scene and happy to contribute songs to the flexidiscs that came came via the emerging fanzines movement.

1987 saw the EP featured today, after which the band were signed by Alan McGee to Creation Records, itself beginning to make a name as the quintessential UK home of indie-guitar bands of the late 80s. The bizarre thing about their time with Creation is that Razorcuts released two full length LPs and contributed to a number of label compilations, but did not (as far as I can tell) release any 45s during their two-year stint on the label. They moved on the Caff Organisation for who there was a one-off single in 1990 before seemingly calling it a day the year after.

Razorcuts have never reformed, but there was a compilation CD pulled together back in 2002 around which Gregory Webster gave some interviews, and there’s a very telling contribution in one of them:-

“There was a very distinctive Razorcuts sound, which is the sound that everybody loves now even after all these years. People still dig that sound. We tried to do things a little differently and we were good at what we did and I guess that was the issue. We never claimed, right from day one, to be able to play our instruments properly. We were genuine people who liked what we thought was incredibly good music and wanted to replicate it , taking it down to the lowest common denominator because we didn’t have the musicianship to be able to do anything else. “

Here’s the other tracks on the 87 EP:-

mp3 : Razorcuts – First Day
mp3 : Razorcuts – Eight Times Around The World
mp3 : Razorcuts – A Is For Alphabet

JC

Razorcuts

NEXT YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Part 11 of 48)

There comes a tipping point when too much twee starts to annoy me. I’ll admit that, despite intending to feature all 48 songs and artistes who appear on CD86, some of the stuff gets the skip treatment on the i-pod. And today’s offering is one of them.

Razorcuts formed in 1985 with the mainstays being Gregory Webster (vocals/guitar) and Tim Vass (bass) augmented at times by various drummers and other musicians who came and went. After a couple of singles on the Subway Organisation label and a one-off on Flying Nun Records, they ended up signing to Creation by 1988 for who they would release two albums in 1988 and 1989 without setting the heather on fire.

The song on CD86 is a b-side to one of their June 86 debut on Subway and while it is far from a bad song – the tune is actually fine – the dreadful sub-standard vocal performance borders on the unlistenable. It is also a perfect example of the off-putting whining, struggling-to-hit-the-right notes delivery that quickly became synonymous with much of the C86 genre and which led to its rather prompt demise.

mp3 : Razorcuts – I’ll Still Be There

Here’s yer A-side:-

mp3 : Razorcuts – Big Pink Cake

The band split up in with Vass going on to form Red Chair Fade Away, and Webster joined The Carousel before the duo reunited under the name Forever People in 1992 for a one-off single called Invisible on Sarah Records.Between 1997 and 2002, Webster was part of Sportique, a sort of twee supergroup made up of ex-members of the likes of Heavenly, Television Personalities and Tallulah Gosh.