Vol. 28 starts with another mini-album, Vampire Can Mating Oven (RTM 205) by Camper Van Beethoven. A spoonerism of a portmanteau! RT 206 is an EP by a group called Thirst, which had many connections to The Fall. Martin Bramah was the singer, Karl Burns the drummer. Thirst guitarist Carrie Lawson was in The Weeds with Simon Wolstencroft (another Fall drummer). Andrew Berry of The Weeds made a solo single which was the debut release on Mark E. Smith's label, Cog Sinister.
Shelleyan Orphan is next, followed by another short lived Liverpool group called Stepping Razor, and the Clappers Power EP by Brother D (who recorded the pioneering political rap "How We Gonna Make The Black Nation Rise?")
Vol. 29 opens with The Motorcycle Boy (Meat Whiplash plus the late Alexandra Taylor of Shop Assistants), followed by The Heart Throbs, Craig Davies, Sudden Sway, The Wygals, and the very last Smiths single on Rough Trade (RT 215).
Vol. 30 begins with Gene And Jim Are Into Shakes (who wisely changed their name after this single), followed by Shelleyan Orphan, S.O.B. (Sound Of Bootsy), Sandie Shaw, more Heart Throbs, more Craig Davies, and The Band Of Holy Joy (RT 223). The eight minute Gene and Jim song was split in half on the 7". There was an instrumental version on the b-side of the 12", but nobody needs that much of one song, especially a novelty song that has aged poorly.
The contents of all previous volumes were assembled from other blogs, mp3 search sites, Soulseek, and my CD collection. In order to complete today's sets, I had to spend time and money on a few elusive singles. I make sacrifices for you people! Stepping Razor, S.O.B., and The Wygals' b-sides are exclusive world premiere rips.
Kidding aside, I was pleased to discover that "The Room" (b-side of The Wygals' exquisite "Passion") is different from the version that appeared on their must-have LP, Honeyocks In The Whithersoever (ROUGH 134). Wheresoever you may find it, that album is a must! "What Me Worry" is also non-LP, and ends with a hot guitar solo by Gene Holder.
V28 (RT 205-209): https://tinyurl.com/y7dectyc
ReplyDeleteV29 (RT 210-215): https://tinyurl.com/y7ejkrje
V30 (RT 216-223): https://tinyurl.com/ycfaarzs
brilliant! thanks!
ReplyDeleteThank for Your Work. Such A Treasure.Greetz Carlo
ReplyDeleteI'm very appreciative of all the work you put into these single compilations. I missed pretty much every one of these back in the day. I'm having a blast discovering most of this music for the first time. Happy holidays, my friend!
ReplyDeleteBest wishes to you too! Same here: I missed more of them than I bought (or taped) back in the day, and it's been a blast to hear the music and feel the spirit that motivated Rough Trade and its artists to create, discover and share an extraordinary diversity of sounds. It's also a welcome distraction from a shitty year.
DeleteI hope the title of the post isn't misleading: there are several more volumes to come. Not all of it is great, and of course there were plenty of other independent labels by the end of the 80's, but RT maintained a high standard and a sterling reputation for its roster and releases. Sadly, the same cannot be said for its business practices, which were its undoing.
Just bought that Wygals album on your recommendation, escaped me somehow back then.
ReplyDeleteHope you enjoy it! Janet Wygal's voice is lovely, and Gene Holder is an impressive guitarist.
DeleteThanks for sharing. I’d never heard of Brother D, but now I know where the sample at the beginning of Dawn Penn’s ‘No, No, No’ comes from.
ReplyDeleteWell spotted! "No, No, No" is a song that has bounced back and forth between America and Jamaica. Willie Cobbs wrote "You Don't Love Me" (which Dawn Penn first recorded in 1967), and which may have been based on Bo Diddley's 1955 song "She's Fine, She's Mine". Dawn's 1967 single was covered and "versioned" many times, and her 1994 remake of "No, No, No" (with the Brother D sample that you identified) spawned another round of covers and dubs, many of which are collected here:
Deletehttps://nathannothinsez.blogspot.com/2015/03/n-n-n.html
Plus there are lots of blues musicians who have covered "You Don't Love Me". I collected a bunch of them and have thought of posting them here. They get kind of repetitive after awhile (both the blues and the reggae versions), and hearing too many in one sitting risks spoiling the magic of "No, No, No".
Thanks for the link. I'd certainly be interested in any posts detailing the lineage of particular songs (even if no-one else would): I remember I used to follow a blog which specialised in just that thing, but I can't remember what it was called, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteP.S: Merry Xmas and thanks for your posts throughout the year.