I mentioned yesterday that a lot of gaps in my musical knowledge of the very late 80s and early 90s were plugged by Jacques the Kipper and his amazing compilation tapes. They currently sit, along with about 1000 other cassettes, in boxes under a bed in the spare room to which I delved in last night and pulled out two at random.
One of them is simply called ‘Tape’ and would have been one of the very first things he passed on to me…while the other is entitled ‘Shut Up Young Man’ and is dated August 1993 – I’m sure he made that one up after yet another incident at work where my motormouth would have gotten me into a bit of bother with the bosses.
The tapes didn’t just fill in gaps from the period when I’d lost touch with music; they also contained some stuff from earlier in the decade that may have passed me by – it was the sort of thing that I was doing in reverse with cassettes that I was compiling for him.
Side A of Tape opened up with The Revolution Will Not Be Televised by Gil Scott Heron and its third track was the fabulous Hang Ten by The Soup Dragons; this was sandwiched in between:-
mp3 : The RBs – Uruguay
The RBs were a Scottish act and have been described as ‘the missing link between Bad Manners, The Police and The Beat’.
Discogs reveals one LP and two singles – the track in question (and apologies for its poor quality but it is ripped from a you tube clip of a TV appearance) is a 45 from April 1982. The RB’s was the shortened version of The Rude Boys and the band consisted of Kevin Patterson (bass/vocals); Gordon McQuillan (drums/percusion); Tony deWinton Pullar (guitar/vocals); Eddie Jordan (keyboards); Stan Pelc (saxophone); Chick Medley (trombone/vocals) and Grant Taylor (trumpet). The single wasn’t included on their sole album, the sleeve of which I’ve used to illustrate this post.
If the names and faces are familiar to some of you then that might well be down to the fact that four of them – Messrs Patterson, Jordan, Medley and Taylor – would subsequently form Fiction Factory and enjoy a synth-based MOR Top 10 hit in December 1983:-
mp3 : Fiction Factory – Feels Like Heaven
More stuff from JtK’s tapes in the weeks and months ahead on an occasional basis.
(NB : I must point out that JtK did NOT ever include the Fiction Factory song on any of his compilations, nor is it one in my collection; both songs featured today have been sourced from t’internet).
PS (added on the morning of 3 November)
Was lucky enough last night to catch McAlmont & Butler play a blinder of a gig at the Glasgow ABC, Twelve folk were on stage for much of the time including five string musicians.
Sad thing was, that despite it being one of just six in a short tour taking in Dublin, Glasgow, Manchester (tonight), Birmingham (Thursday), Bristol (Friday) and London (Saturday) it was a fair way short of a deserved sell-out….probably about two-thirds full. If you’re in the vicinity of any of those cities over the rest of this week, then you should seriously think of heading along. You won’t regret it, especially if you appreciate real singing and/or enjoy a masterclass in guitar work.
Reminder of what they’re capable of:-
https://thenewvinylvillain.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/yes/
JC
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