It’s now time to look at some of the 45s released in February 1984 that didn’t make enough impact with the record buying public to leave a dent in the singles charts but have proven to be of enough cultural significance to be recalled here in Villain Towers. By cultural significance, I mean I either bought a copy or danced to it to at the student disco….or perhaps actually discovered it many months/years later and kicked myself for being late to the party. Or it might well be that I think its inclusion in this piece will be of interest to someone out there who drops by this blog on the odd occasion. (and yes, that is a word for word repeat of how I opened up the January part of this series….I’ll likely stick to it for the remainder of the year).
I’ll open with one that I don’t recall hearing back in 1984….indeed it would take until 1987 and the release of the band’s third album before I became fully aware of them.
mp3: 10,000 Maniacs – My Mother The War
The band had come together in Jamestown, New York 1981, with a then 17-year-old Natalie Merchant on lead vocals. An early EP was followed by the album Secrets of The I Ching in late 1983. One of its most popular tracks, My Mother The War, was licensed by a small UK label, Reflex Records, and became the band’s first release outside of the USA.
mp3: Marc Riley with The Creepers – Cure By Choice
Having left The Fall in 1982, Marc Riley formed his own band and began writing and recording. A Peel Session was recorded in November 1983, and within three months, had been issued as a 12″ EP on Riley’s own label, In Tape. The lead song, Cure By Choice, bears more than a passing resemblance to some of the material written and recorded by The Fall, which can’t be too much of a surprise.
mp3: Revolving Paint Dream – Flowers Are In The Sky
mp3: Biff Bang Pow! – 50 Years Of Fun
Two 45s released on the newly formed Creation Records. Indeed, they have the catalogue numbers of CRE 002 and CRE 003. Footnotes in what became quite the story over the years.
Now to something which had me scouring the internet to little effect, as it was the name of an act I’d never heard of!
mp3: Ian Dury and The Music Students – Very Personal
These details are lifted from a website devoted to Ian Dury:-
In 1981 Ian Dury and the Blockheads disbanded and Ian left Stiff Records and signed instead to Polydor, who released the album Lord Upminster. This included the controversial single Spasticus (Autisticus). For this record, Dury was re-united with Chaz Jankel, and they recorded in the Bahamas with the legendary rhythm section of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare. A second Polydor album, 4000 Weeks’ Holiday was released in 1984, and it was toured with a new band, Ian Dury and the Music Students.
There’s a wiki page devoted to 4000 Weeks’ Holiday, and it lists the personnel who played on the album – Ian Dury (vocals), Michael McEvoy (bass, keyboards), Merlin Rhys-Jones (guitar), Tag Lamche (drums, percussion), and Jamie Talbot (saxophones, clarinet). It also states:-
If accounts by Dury himself and Music Student member Merlin Rhys-Jones (who would continue to work with Dury and co-write songs with him until his death) from Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll: The Life of Ian Dury are correct, it would appear that it was Polydor Records who suggested and insisted on Dury working with young musicians.
Contradictorily, Ian Dury & The Blockheads: Song By Song purports that Polydor had wanted The Blockheads to play on the album, with the group rejecting the idea after learning they wouldn’t be paid due to Dury spending most of his advance on his previous solo effort Lord Upminster. Song By Song’s account is corroborated by Norman Watt-Roy (bassist for the Blockheads).
Either way, the album didn’t sell well while Very Personal, the only single to be lifted from it, failed to chart.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 