Fingerbobs

[1972]

S Reynolds points out Scampi Theme is also a banger which I totally agree. However I cannot abide Gulliver's (The Seagull) Theme which goes into very irritating almost Tiny Tim territory. The opening Fingerbobs Theme which incorporates Joffy's own little theme tune is also excellent as is the tortoise's tune aka Flash's Theme.

What's the story with Joffy I wonder?

A Canadian paper finger puppet master abroad gets his own show on the BBC. 

A quick glance on the interwebs reveals Joffy aka actor Rick Jones was a Play School presenter in Britain during the 60s and 70s who was involved in a drugs scandal which got him sacked from the BBC.

Rick Jones - Saskatchewan Sunrise (1971)
He had a #26 Canadian hit with this sorta baroque-country Gordon Lightfoot-esque tune. Pretty good.

 

Rick Jones later had a band called Meal Ticket. They did this tune for the The Flipside Of Dominick Hide which was an episode of Play For Today in 1980.

The Flipside Of Domonick Hide (1980)

I don't recall but surely Mark Fisher wrote about this show... I mean it's described as a tale about "genetic time slippage" ffs... actually this predated Back To The Future and fulfils some of the scenarios entertained therein ie. there is some kind of sex with a great-great-grandmother, oh dear this does sound demented, whereby Dominick spawns his own great-grandfather or something... 

Fingermouse Theme

"I am the mouse called fingermouse

the mouse with guts and verve

I get past cats so easily

with my famous body-swerve"

I was watching an episode of Fingerbobs and this great folk-y Fingermouse theme tune came on. Then I thought how was this missed in the 00s when all those British kids telly things became all the rage and they reissued the soundtracks and dvds of the programs etc.  

 

Fingermouse Theme - Michael Jesset, Michael Cole and Rick Jones (1972)

Turns out Trunk did a cd reissue in 2011 which I can now pay $57 for on discogs. 

Anyway, top tune.  

In Reverse / Some Say - Stray

In Reverse / Some Say - Stray [1970]

The undeniable heavy psych-prog stylings of Stray from their eponymous debut record.

So much music was dismissed, written out or never written in rock history narratives that there are some bands you just never heard about back in the day. I mean people know their Groundhogs, Pink Fairies, Buffalo and even Sweet Leaf these days but Stray... They were probably mentioned in Rock & The Pop Narcotic (1990) but it wasn't until the early 00s when reissue specialists Castle Music released that space rock compilation then the Stray 70s anthology that many of us became aware of these lost doyens of progressive hard rock.  

All In Your Mind - Stray [1970]
This was the tune on the 2001: A Space Rock Odyssey 2cd compilation, it's also the opening track to Stray's self-titled 1970 debut. 

Drivin' hard riffin' gloriousness. This still has remnants of their mod roots whilst heading into the stoner proto-metal 70s. Some severe wah-wah action here. The SOUND of these guitars baby!

'O' Level - We Love Malcolm

[1978]

'O' Level were notable for being name checked in Part-Time Punks (1978) by The Television Personalities. It's a bit cheeky though as Ed Ball was in both groups. This is DIY punk and no it ain't no hard-rock/sub-metal. More like proto-indie skeletal jangle-y gear of the faux ineptitude variety yet sorta charming, cheerful and tuneful, before that whole vibe got tiresome in the 80s. 

Also how amazing is it that a manager of a band was able to insinuate himself into being a celebrity as famous as his clients The Sex Pistols, then get a bloody song written about him. 

Information - Inside Your Mind

[1985]

On the synth-y new wave tip in a proto hypnagogic/synth-wave style that you'd imagine the likes of Ariel Pink, John Maus, Geneva Jacuzzi etc. being influenced by. The world just wasn't ready for this kind of outside the lines deranged pop music with its amorphous mega melodies and overall synth seepage.  

The And - Marshmallow In A Keyhole

[1984]

Bringing you all the hits and misses from the 80s. Weird mixture of in-between scenes things here: Synth-y new wave, almost indie rock and throwback 70s radio anthem... hits you in your emotional bones, I mean it coulda been on a teen flick soundtrack couldn't it... just a catchy, crafty and copacetic tune. When that keyboard hits at 1:47 it gets pretty ecstatic. Surely this is Canadian... or Mid-Western. 

The best anthem from the 80s you never heard. 

New Johnny 5 - The Reasoning

[1985]

This kinda post-punk new wave sound was old by 1986 but this tune is soo fucking good it makes you think well hang on a minute this is undeniable who cares! A good tune is a good tune. 

This is incredibly endearing and bittersweet regional new wave from New London CT. It's a lost classic. New Johnny 5 are forever out of time and place even in the internet age. They're not on spotify and their 1986 LP Alternative Tactics has only eight ratings on Rate Your Music.

(non) hits and non (memories)

The Gathering - Falling Crimson

[1988]

A bit of late goth from South Africa no less. The Gathering (not to be confused with the Dutch band) did just one single and this was the b-side. This tune is a lark innit, what a killer dark bass line, ace drummage and great atmospheric infernal guitar sound. 

Konrad - Evil

[1982]

If you didn't discover Konrad's delightful cult album Evil on music sharing blogs in the 00s here's your chance now. Don't let the cover fool you this ain't no satanic metal, it's actually an anti-evil synth-songwriter record. The sort of thing you might think John Maus was influenced by. While Evil is somewhat of its time it's also absolutely outside of time as well. 

Along with the myriad of synth action you get some fx damaged vocals, acoustic guitars, more synths, jazzy pop, psych rock reimagined through an electro pop viewfinder, lite synthetic jazz-funk, a blue eyed soul tune, cosmic synth breaks and even reggae. A bit like a skewed survey of radio rock/pop of the era made in a bedroom by one fella and his arsenal of keyboards. Konrad: A one man genre that he also termed Ethereal Sequence which he described as "the sequence of the soul". This music scientist is an electro wizard. 

Lyrical and theme-wise Evil is somewhat of a concept LP. After seeing a lot of violence and murder on the streets of NYC, the assassination of John Lennon was the catalyst for him "to build a non violent record where he could teach human beings not to be evil" Other topics include science, the cosmos, synchronicity, the matrix, alien intelligence and the drudgery of work.

Cult-y outsider music albums can often be a difficult listen or just utter crap but this is incredibly accessible pop music.  

The unadulterated humanity here might just be the tonic you need in these spiritually bankrupt times.  

Cleaners From Venus - Follow The Plough

Cleaners From Venus - Follow The Plow 

Cleaners From Venus' poetic jolly defiance looking towards whimsical optimism or something more ecstatic is always good on a gloomy wintry day. Their spirited daydream-y anthems fit my glad to be gloomy/Happy when it rains vibes. I used to call overcast rainy winter days in Melbourne during June "Joy Division days"...  in the 90s me and my housemate would get some red wine and watch Withnail & I on such days. 

Anyway I discovered an odds and sods German only Cleaners From Venus compilation tape today called Winter (1988) and it has this version of Follow The Plough. This is a slightly different "brighter" mix from the one on the Living With Victoria Grey tape. 

Cleaners From Venus in their jangling 80s, Rickenbacker drenched, heavenly pop (non) hit stride. 

Peak Newell.

    

The Living With Victoria Grey mix. Interestingly it's grey in Victoria today... hello from the Antipodes.

Cleaners From Venus - Winter (1988)

The whole shonky un-remastered lo-fi cassette.

A1 Prince Of The Winter recorded 1985, previously released on Various - Reynard The Fox.

A2 When Fire Burns Dreams recorded 1986, previously released on Modern Art/Cleaners From Venus - Souvenir.

A3 Amateur Paranoic recorded 1982/83, previously released on the cassingle Two For The Winter. 

A4 She's Checkin You Out recorded 1982/83, previously released on the cassingle Two For The Winter.

A5 Albion's Daughter recorded 1986, previously released on Modern Art/Cleaners From Venus - Souvenir.

A6 Ilya Kuryakin Looked At Me recorded 1986. Originally appeared on the Victoria Grey cassette. This version is a special mix for Color Tapes with different instruments (real drums, different guitar mix etc.)

B7 Sunday Afternoon recorded 1987
B8 Ilya Kuryakin (full version) recorded 1987. This is the vinyl version from Illya Kuryakin Looked At Me.
B9 Black And White. recorded 1987. Previously released on Illya Kuryakin Looked At Me.

B10 Follow The Plough recorded 1985/86. Originally appeared on the Victoria Grey tape. This version is a more "transparent" Mix made for Color Tapes.
B11 Soul Monday recorded 1984/85. Originally appeared on the solo cassette Martin Newell - Songs For A Fallow Land. Different mix.

B12 Julie Profumo recorded 1984/85. Originally appeared on the solo cassette Martin Newell - Songs For A Fallow Land. Rather different mix.

Martin Newell - Amateur Paranoiac [Two For The Winter - Cassingle] (1983)

Wonky post-punk psychedelic dub poetry kinda thing. Top stuff.

Cleaners From Venus - Julie Profumo (1985)

Back to the pastoral paisley... Pure perfect poetic pop!

Autopilot - Love Is A Process

[1979]

Cult post-punk single of the highest order... you love your Magazine, The Fall. Wire, Homosexuals etc. well now you can add Autopilot to the list. Quite possibly the greatest one off post-punk single of all time out of Britain, it's so ace it's hard to believe it didn't become a chartbusting hit. 

Forced Vengeance - William Goldstein

[1982]

Incredible opening sequence and score to Forced Vengeance. Layers of spectacular thickly textured synthesisers, oriental vibes and anthemic drama. As previously stated in the post about William Goldstein's score to Eye For An Eye, many of the best soundtracks are for movies you don't know or care about.

Film · The Church

More soundtrack-y goodness from legendary 80s bands. An instrumental of immense lyrical charm. Gorgeous profoundly emotional stuff. I dunno if it ever got used in a film or tv show... 

Elegia · New Order

Epic.

On the evidence here New Order should have become massive soundtrack composers. Alas that was not to be. This track however has been used numerous times on soundtracks for 80s teen movies, video games, documentaries, cop shows and several Netflix series. 

Elegia is Italian for elegy which makes sense as this sombre and mournful instrumental is dedicated to Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis, their former bandmate who killed himself. 

I didn't even know a 17 minute version of this existed but apparently the five minute version on Low-Life (1985) is edited down from this lengthy original.  

The Ogre Theme - Simon Boswell

From the dude who produced 23 Skidoo's Coup (1984) and did the brilliant score to Richard Stanley's cyberpunk flick Hardware (1990) comes this slice of soundtrack gold. A sombre slow-crawling dystopian vibe here that is actually for an Italian telly movie directed by Mario Bava's son Lamberto. 

The Ripper - Rod Slane

[1985]

Once again a soundtracks to a z-grade 80s horror flick that outshines all other contributions to the film. Rod Slane's The Ripper OST has never been released. This 11 minute suite extracted from the movie and edited together by Fish Man starts out eerily sad quickly becoming cinematic with compounding layers of suspenseful sound and soon enough alarming atmospheres are achieved. At 3:00 those incredible chiming synths enter rippling kaleidoscopically outwards eventually deforming. More sonic layers are insidiously added, the pile up reaching immense density and aural capacity. Thick textures  of dramatic synthetic sound are deployed to great effect and by 6:30 some über-80s guitar tones arrive then it's back to dark tones before ending with a tropical neon nights synth jam. 

Fabio Frizzi - City of the Living Dead

Fabio Frizzi - Apoteosi Del Mistero (1980) 

It's a remake of his Zombie theme. More like a cleaned up, more uplifting version. Peak mellotron choir goodness. Creepy heroic.  

Fabio Frizzi - Zombie 2 Main Title (1979)

I think I prefer this though. There's something a bit more grime-y, drowsy and unstable about it, quite torpid compared to the above remake. Funereal zombie stoner synth.

 

Fabio Frizzi - Paura Nella Città Dei Morti Viventi (1982)

It's pretty hard to go past this here, the original Beat Records soundtrack LP of City Of The Living Dead though. One of the all time great Italian horror scores. Amongst the gorgeously mournful analogue synths, epic ghostly mellotron choirs, tenebrous atmospherics, there's even some acoustic guitar and quite possibly the most emotional use of a fretless bass ever in the history of recorded music on the unbelievably poignant Paura E Liberazione.

Graveyard Productions - Grab My Mask

Graveyard Productions - Grab My Mask (1995)

The daisy-age gone sour. A deranged criminal tale set to sweet innocent music. So it's not the usual 90s Memphis underground horror movie samples, it's a lovely tranquil Isley Brothers sample of Highways Of My Life mixed with Graveyard Production's melodic chorus that has fermented into something off key sickly sweet and absurdly unsavoury. It's a bit of creepy fun, lo-fi used to delirious perfection. They tread a fine line on Grab My Mask: Always verging on satire of hip hop's glamorisation of nihilistic ultra violence and yet it's still often unsettling. "Don't make me get my OJ gloves" is a particularly menacing line that's probably also black comedy genius. I'm pretty sure there's also a conflicted Robin Hood-esque moral tale lurking in amongst this complex barrage of words too.    

DIY outsider halloween music.

Strap Like An Army Tank - King Goldi (feat. Lil Wako & Skimask Troopaz)

King Goldi - Strap Like An Army Tank (Video incorrectly titled) - [1996]

Insane underground lo-fi psychedelic horrorcore* 90s Memphis stylee with some rockin' guitar samples and screwed techniques. That cheap creepy synth is something else. The music here has more in common with Chrome or The Residents than say 1996's rising stars of rap Jay Z or The Fugees. 

*I feel like 90s underground Memphis Rap with morbid, horror, satanic and dark psychological themes was never properly named or in fact given a proper sub-genre term to seperate it from other Memphis rap and Horrorcore from other geographical areas. Using the term horrorcore with 90s Memphis rap is somewhat misleading as it really doesn't sound anything like Esham, Gravediggaz or bloody ICP, only really overlapping in some dark psychological lyrical themes. The 90s Memphis flows and beats are an entire (aesthetic sound)world apart from these Northern counterparts. 

If they can retroactively coin the term Mid-School Hip Hop they should have no qualms about a seperate genre name for the music I'm talking about here. Bloggers and aficionados refer to it as evil Memphis shit or devil shyt. Perhaps I should try to come up with one... then again I can't stand retroactively titled genres especially if it's for music created created more than 5 years previous let alone 30 years ago. I mean is anybody seriously really using the term Zolo outside of Rate Your Music nerds? 

Black Puppet - Groove Chronicles

Groove Chronicles - Black Puppet [1999]

Classic UKG. 

The kids are reading history in reverse. So some of these children who weren't even born in 1999 call this dubstep. Not something that inspired or influenced dubstep but actual dubstep. This temporal collapse is distorting knowledge. It's a particular pedagogical and epistemic problem that is being applied across the board as seen in debates about slavery where they conveniently leave out of the timeline how the British stopped slavery and poured immense financial and human resources into this incredibly moral endeavour... correct me if I'm wrong I think perhaps sociologist Frank Füredi addresses the problems with reading history wrong and its disastrous consequences... anyway sorry this is a tangent not relevant to this amazing track.

...this was the b-side of their hit 99 with the wibble wobble bass, crisp jittery beat and overall immense dubwise production.   

Just Give It All To Christ · Lucky Rosenbloom

Lucky Rosenbloom (1985)

Back to the electro. This is something else. I guess it's electro gospel but I mean it could be gospel-house, I don't get the genre pigeon hole here...I'm guessing it's down to the make of drum machine and his geographic location which was St Paul. 

This is a WTF? tune if there ever was one. It's electronic, it's post disco, It's funky, it's jazzy, It's futuristic, it's the strangest space age gospel tune you ever heard. Insane synth action with luxurious soul jazz piano stylings, acidic squelches, off the wall funky keytar breaks, unorthodox recording techniques and more. At one stage (0.42) I thought another song had started playing in another window of my computer but no that's just this song's strange arrangement and unique sound design. I can't tell whether that was incompetence or deliberate, either way it was surprising and a genius move.

If my memory serves Rosenbloom was a pastor and tv evangelist who recorded just this one 7" single and last year it got re-released by one of those trendy reissue labels either Light In The Attic or Numero Group. 

I think maybe this is outsider music.  

Broadcast - Spell Blanket

Running Back To Me - Broadcast (2024)

Witchy and tribal. This definitely has a second half of the 00s vibe, making clear that there was definite overlap between Hypnogogia and Hauntology. This has a similar spirit to groups like Pocahaunted but then again I guess Broadcast were always more than just hauntologic with their folky neo-psych and dilapidated moogy dream jazz.

March Of The Fleas - Broadcast (2024)

Sorta like a lo-fi shoegaze jam but Broadcast stylee. I get that these are demos but were Broadcast ever this raw? My brain says no but I don't really trust my memory bank anymore so who knows... maybe I'll have to dig out me dusty old cds and give them a listen. So the recently released Spell Blanket compilation is made up of 36 demos recorded between 2006 and 2009. This material was apparently sketches for a future LP that never got made. (Retro) Retro retro-future.  

Broadcast - My Body (2024)

Hymn for an occult ritual... goths in the woods...fun baby Diamanda Galas doing spooky incantations...

I don't recall Broadcast ever being this overtly... well just this overt. 

Disturbing or hilariously cheese-y, I don't know... maybe both. 

Broadcast - Follow The Light (2024)

While containing many sketches and snippets Spell Blanket has plenty of gorgeous haunting psych-folk moments like this. Surely one of Trish's most outstanding tunes.