Big Flame, or to be more precise bIG* fLAME, were from Manchester, active from 1983 to 1986 during which there were five singles/EPs, the debut on their own Laughing Gun Records in 1984 with the remainder being on Ron Johnson Records during 1985 and 1986. They were also invited to contribute to the C86 cassette:-
mp3: New Way (Quick Wash And Brush Up With Liberation Theology) – biG*fLAME
Track 7 on side 2 of the C86 cassette; Track 18, Disc One of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition.
This 1 minutes and 38 seconds of mayhem wasn’t made available elsewhere, but was included on a post-career compilation, Rigour 1983-1986, released in 1996 by an American label, Drag City
The very title of the song should give you a hint that bIG* fLAME were quite different from everyone else on C86. Named after a revolutionary socialist feminist grouping, they were more punk than indie, with an uncompromising sound and attitude. I have suggested they are an acquired taste, but there are times when their music just perfectly matches my mood.
After bIG* fLAME, we go to another extreme of indie music, and possibly the most jangly indie band to ever take the piss out of the jangly indie scene while still making great music.
The Pooh Sticks are from Swansea in South Wales, initially being together between 1987 and 1995, before reforming in 2010. Their first five singles were released in 1988, all on the locally-based Fierce Recordings, and all being single-sided on 7″ in limited numbers. Among the titles were I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well and Indiepop Ain’t Noise Pollution, but perhaps their greatest two minutes and forty seconds came via this:-
mp3: On Tape – The Pooh Sticks
Track 18, Disc 2 of CD86.
I’ll stand by my words from a few years back:-
“On Tape is a brilliant record on so many different levels. It sounds as shambolic and cheaply recorded as most of the C86 tracks were, it pays homage to the humble cassette which, after all, was the medium under which C86 thrived and above all else the lyrics gently mock the trainspotter obsessiveness of so many music fans (myself included!!) with lyrics such as “I’ve got Falling and Laughing – the original Postcard version” and “I sent for the Soup Dragons single, mail-order only; £1.30 to Martin Whitehead, but it never came!”
They would later sign to labels in America, and by 1991 had changed direction to a more power pop sound, through to the 1995 break-up. There hasn’t been much in the way of new material since the 2010 comeback, which in essence was to play at the Indietracks Festival that year, and there have been just a handful of appearances since. Having said that, main man Hue Williams is very much part of the very active group Swansea Sound alongside many other indie alumni.
mp3: One Breath – The Turncoats
Track 22, Disc Two of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition.
This has proved among the most difficult to get info on. The Turncoats had just one release, and it was the Motor Ball Meltbeat EP on Noiseannoys Records in 1986, which was the label That Petrol Emotion had briefly set up and which saw the release of the single V2 in 1985. If the info on Discogs is correct, then V2 and Motor Ball Meltbeat were the only two released on Noiseannoys. I’ve also found that The Turncoats supported TPE a few times in the mid 80s.
The band members were Nick Brown, Roger Hellier, James Murray and Chris Teckkam. I’ve since established that Roger Hellier and Chris Teckkam were later part of an early 90s band called Swimmer.
And that’s it……………………………………
The Blue Aeroplanes are a band from Bristol who have been on the go since 1983 with thirteen albums and countless singles to their name. Their debut release was an album rather than a single. Bop Art came out in 1984 on their own Party Records. One of its tracks was later included on the expanded C86 release:-
mp3: Outback Jazz – The Blue Aeroplanes
Track 13, Disc Three of C86 The Deluxe 3CD Edition.
It is genuinely impossible to summarise the band in a few paragraphs. Back in 2017, the comedian and writer Stewart Lee, described The Blue Aeroplanes a being “like Philip Larkin fronting Television”. Why? Well, the band has long fused poetry and guitar-led melodies, while throwing in elements of folk. They have also been subject to almost as many changes in membership as The Fall, with some 50 different musicians/performers having at one time or other being in the band. And in Wojtek Dmochowski, they have engaged a dancer as part of their live shows since the very beginning.
Maybe it’s best I refer you to this ICA, penned for the blog by Mike Melville, a long-time fan of the band and whose own website/blog, Manic Pop Thrills, is always a fascinating read.
One final overall thought…..the foursome making up this latest edition of the series have very little in common, and as Josef K might have put it, it’s kinda funny that they all ended on up on releases associated with the C86 genre.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 