Category: Obscurios

This is a release I know next to nothing about and which ordinarily might never have been in my record collection, given that I was never very much into the more ramalama punky end of the spectrum, much preferring the artier end of the new wave. So a solo release from Jimmy Pursey of Sham 69, which I’d have tagged at the shoutier end of the street in my ignorance, was never likely to be leaping out of the record racks back in my youth. Yet, this release is something else altogether. When I first heard it, I’d never in a million years have thought it had that connection. What it does have is Peter Gabriel written all over it – for musically this seems very much a production of he and John Ellis, one time Vibrator and later Strangler, amongst other credits. Musically, this certainly has 80/82 Gabriel all over it. A low quality dub can be heard on youtube.

Continue reading “Jimmy Pursey ‘Animals Have More Fun’ UK 7″ single (Epic, EPC A1336, 1981)”

Smash Hits magazine has a lot to answer for, let me tell you. An ostensibly mass-market, teen-focussed glossy fortnightly publication, its modern day equivalent would barely be worth a glance, filled no doubt with focus-grouped fodder dreamt up in high-security labs to a weapons-grade mass appeal, if vapid in content. But in its prime, how much oddness did the magazine help to foist upon eager young ears? I can’t imagine the modern-day equivalent of something as obscure as a Drinking Electricity scoring such prime-time coverage. Perhaps the persuasive manner of Bob Last, for it is he of the Pop:Aural label (and earlier Fast Product pedigree) that was home to this post’s musical goodies, that levered the band such a space?

The article in question is reproduced below. As you might guess, it was enough to foster my curiosity and to urge my feet of a Saturday afternoon to yonder record shop to fetch ‘Cruising Missiles’. Not because I had heard it. Noooo… Simply because… well… it all looked and sounded so damn interesting. As it happened, I could only come across ‘Cruising Missiles’, ‘Shake Some Action’ would have to wait till another time

Continue reading “Drinking Electricity ‘Cruising Missiles’ UK 7″ single (Pop:Aural, POP 008, 1980)”

1981 was a busy year for Talking Heads solo projects, following the high-profile ‘Remain in Light’ successes. David Byrne managed to bring two separate projects (one with Brian Eno of course) to light, while The Tom Tom Club scored the quirkiest of the hits. Perhaps more in the shadows, certainly in terms of sales and profile, was Jerry Harrison, who by the year end had brought out his first solo album. ‘The Red and The Black’. But while it might not have been a hit, it certainly did point towards the sound that Talking Heads would adopt by 1983’s ‘Speaking In Tongues’.

Continue reading “Jerry Harrison – ‘The Red and The Black’ UK LP (Sire Records, SRK 3631, 1981)”