THE BEST OF WAZMO NARIZ Chicago's New Wave Geniuses Check Out The Checkout Girl!

THE BEST OF WAZMO NARIZ 

I was turned onto WAZMO NARIZ through a 1981 compilation: I.R.S. GREATEST HITS VOLS. 2 & 3.

Trouser Press said this about it:   This double album has its musical ups and downs, but it’s a well-assembled sampler by a label that, at the time, had a phenomenal roster. A lot of these bands have since made better records than the items included here; still, it fulfills its appointed mission skillfully, and does contain a lot of good material.

It was also my introduction to Skafish, another Chicago band that shares a lot of similarities.  Both were decidedly uncool, oddball, & original.  There wasn't a pretty boy in either band, both shared their name with the stage name of the lead singer, and both were early 80’s new wave bands.

Of WAZMO, Trouser Press journo Steven Grant wrote: Despite a wealth of talent and wild humor, Nariz fell between niches — too bizarre to be pop, too pop to be avant-garde — and the band dissolved amid financial worries & critical apathy.

But their successes certainly stirred some envy in their peers.  Their first single Tele-Tele-Telephone was picked up by STIFF Records—and was one of the label’s first UK releases.  After releasing an EP, the band caught the attention of I.R.S. Records’ founder Miles Copeland who put them on tour with his brother’s band THE POLICE.  Two songs from an appearance opening for them at Santa Monica Civic Center are included here.  

They were prolific songwriters.  None of the songs on their EP were included on their debut album.  To my knowledge, they didn’t record any cover songs.

Lead singer Wazmo Nariz (Larry Grennan) was an early host of MTV’s Cutting Edge.  Wazmo/Grennan went on to work with Stan Ridgway, and his drummer Bruce Zelesnik was a member of Ridgway’s band.  Grennan popped up in several national commercials back in the day.

Doug Stone reviewed their lone I.R.S. release: This inaugural LP spurts Bryan Ferry trilling trapped in bouncy Oingo Boingo biscuits. Skinny-tie before skinny ties made the scene (hence Nariz' trademark of two wide ties) and new wave before new wave crashed on the shore, Nariz and his Wazband are undeniably talented but strikingly odd. If you like your '80s pop off-kilter and kooky, chances are you'll dig Things Aren't Right, which sets the standard for standing apart.

A shout out is in order to (friend of the blog) ViacomClosedMeDown.  He posted the lion's share of the tracks contained here on his blog.  While I had some of the tracks on CD, I used his rips so it would have the warm crackle of vinyl throughout--except for of a couple of live YouTube videos I converted.  Check out VCMD's Wazmo post here: Down Underground

BEST OF THE SINCEROS LIVE! - Power Pop/New Wave Perfection!

BEST OF THE SINCEROS LIVE!

THE SINCEROS signed with Epic Records in 1979, & put out their debut: The Sound Of Sunbathing.  It was hampered by a terrible album cover in the UK, but the US version’s cover is pretty cool.  Their first single: Take Me To Your Leader got a lot of airplay—peaking at #70 in Australia.  

Their second album was shelved in 1980—eventually getting reworked/re-recorded & released as Pet Rock in 1981--but the delay cost the band their momentum.  Both albums are great new wave/power pop showcases for their clever & catchy songwriting, & quirky, yet cohesive, playing. 

The Sinceros had so many songs with hit potential.  Other highlights are; I Still Miss You, Little White Lies, Disappearing, Are You Ready (A Mark Kjeldsen solo single that was also released as a single by The Sinceros) and the very Joe Jackson-sounding Worlds Apart which are all included here. 

Members went on to play in Squeeze, Eurogliders, The Teardrop Explodes, Procol Harum, Nick Lowe & The Impossible Birds, and in Van Morrison’s band.  

Drummer Bobby Irwin is probably the member I was most familiar with after the band broke up.  He played with everyone in Rockpile—one of my favorite bands.  The Sinceros backed LENE LOVICH on her Stateless album—which I consider to be a classic--& they backed Lene on her BE STIFF tour.

Mark Kjeldsen joined forces with the great Danny Adler.  I spotlighted Adler here: THE BEST OF DANNY ADLER Vol. 1 & I did a BEST OF THE SINCEROS studio work that can be found here: BEST OF THE SINCEROS.

Tracks on this live compilation are from shows at the legendary London venues The Hope & Anchor, & The Paris Theatre, and Boston’s Rat Club.  Some (most?) of them are from the wonderful BB Chronicles blog: BB Chronicles/Sinceros.  A tip of the hat to them!

 

Barney Bubbles Tunes 1977-84

In 1977, Barney Bubbles created some revolutionary covers and saw him paying respect to constructivist and modernist imagery with stunning original results for Stiff Records.
Barney had a long artistic relationship with Ian Dury, designing various classic sleeves for both his singles and albums.
The most famous of his LP covers for Dury and the Blockheads was probably 1979’s Do It Yourself, which was released with 36 cover variations based on Crown Wallpaper! 
His most prolific work was probably done for Elvis Costello’s releases, as he followed Costello & Nick Lowe from Stiff to Radar to F-Beat Records.
Even so, his work was not confined to those 3 labels as he was also active for Chiswick, Epic, a.m.o.
Barney had a very strong work discipline and took his assignments seriously, whether he could relate to the music or not.
Unfortunately, his private life was a rather different story (bipolar disorder and continuous financial problems didn’t help), and he took his own life in mid-November 1983... 

Barney at times had disagreements with both record companies (especially for the US market!) and artists, e.g. Dave Edmunds wasn’t pleased at all with the back cover of his Tracks On Wax 4 album... 

Even so, Barney’s design for Edmunds’ Twangin’ redeemed him completely!
The amount of work he produced was staggering, and this compilation only shows you the tip of the musical iceberg.

I’ve done my best to present either an album or a single cover of each song represented here, and the 35-page PDF also gives more details about Barney's influences.

As quite a few of the punk/new wave period Bubbles-related songs were already included in my previous Radar and F-Beat Records posts, I opted for some more obscure music, e.g. The Imperial Pompadours (Barney’s own band!), Elvis Costello in disguise, Laurie Latham’s band The Vampire Bats From Lewisham, and a Roger Chapman vinyl-only dub!
Besides the above, 1977-84 also features :
Ian Dury And The Music Students  / Generation X / Graham Parker / Mick Farren & The Deviants / The Adverts / Big Star / Humphrey Ocean's Iron Hoof / Nik Turner's Sphynx / Whirlwind / The Sinceros / Clive Langer And The Boxes / Chas Jankel / The Inmates / The Damned /  Dr. Feelgood / Inner City Unit / The Psychedelic Furs / Amazulu / Billy Bragg / Mercy Ray / Wang Chung 

The 2 volumes (which easily could have been 3, volume 1 posted yesterday for the 500niversary!) here give an adequate overview, covering prog-rock, space-rock, folk, pub-rock, country-rock, punk, funk, new wave, rockabilly, and more, enjoy! 

Roger Béchirian - Engineer/Mixer/Producer

One of the fun things (for me, at least) about reading music/design books is gaining more insight into the entire process of recording music, from start to finish. And along the way, discovering new / forgotten artists and groups as well!
Although Barney Bubbles’ Wild World lacks a list of all the sleeves he designed or was involved in, it still showed me a few names I had never heard of…
One of those was Roger Béchirian, for whom Barney had come with a wonderful cover design based on Alex Steinweiss’ sleeves from the 1950s.
This graced a promo album called The Art of Roger Béchirian Vol. 1, released by F-Beat in 1982, which apparently was given away as a special Christmas present that year!
It contained 35 ‘snippets’ of songs on which Roger had a part in…
A quick search revealed that Roger is a well-known producer who has worked with several key artists that keep popping up here on Jokonky, plus quite a few obscure ones!
The liner notes of the album read as follows: 

Welcome to the art of Roger Bechirian, a track-by-track guided tour through his career as producer of countless commercial successes and musically satisfying moments. All the artistes represented on this record have benefitted from Roger's deft hand at the controls, as on hits by Lene Lovich, The Undertones, The Photos, The Rumour, Squeeze, a.o.
Side two contains a varied selection of Roger's work, demonstrating his ability to produce top results over a wide and diverse range of musical styles: Elvis Costello, The dB’s, Dirty Looks, The Blues Band, Shakin’ Pyramids, a.o.
We trust that you will enjoy listening to this brief sampling of Roger's work. We would like to thank all the record companies involved for the loan of these snippets. 

Yup, 15 different record companies were involved in this project!

Unnecessary to say that this album was never re-released in any form...

A bit of background, Roger was born in India but moved with his family to England when he was ten. He started developing his skills by editing music recorded from the TV! After taking college classes in electronics, he began working at a four-track recording studio in 1972.
Roger met Stiff Records founders Jake Rivera and Dave Robinson in 1974 and began mixing songs for the label. He slowly evolved into a producer, but also performed as a musician, being a member of Blanket of Secrecy!

As I began working on this project, I decided to stick to just one song of each artist/group in order to give a better overview of Roger’s work.
This enabled me to include some later songs as well, from after 1982.
The resulting compilation includes 24 songs ranging from 1979 to 1987, focusing on singles releases only.

By the way, in case you’re wondering, Roger is still active as a producer and a fun interviewee, check it out here. He has some great stories to tell about his work with Elvis, Nick, Dave, The Monkees, and even The Sex Pistols!

F-Beat Records 1980 - 1986

In last week’s post, I described how Jake Riviera had moved from Stiff to Radar Records and taking Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, and others with him.  However Radar didn’t last long, just 2 years (I don’t count the short revival during the mid-90s) and Jake moved on…

This time together with Andrew Lauder to start F-Beat Records which released quite a lot of albums and singles in their 6 year lifespan.
Unlike Radar though their number of artists was relatively small: Nick Lowe, Carlene Carter, the Blasters, Blanket of Secrecy, and a few others.  The album and single sleeves were mostly designed by Barney Bubbles.   

In 1986 Jake pulled out the plug of F-Beat and some of its artists ended up on Demon Records.  Similar to Radar, no ‘Best of F-Beat’ ever materialized, therefore once again Jokonky stepped in, and our 28 track promo compilation includes:

Rockpile
Nick Lowe & Dave Edmunds
Nick Lowe
Kenny Pickett
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
The Coward Brothers
The Costello Show Featuring The Attractions
The Costello Show Featuring Confederates
Clive Langer & The Boxes
Carlene Carter & Paul Carrack
Carlene Carter & Dave Edmunds
Carlene Carter
The Blasters
Blanket Of Secrecy
Steve Nieve
The Attractions
 
Enjoy!

Radar Records Singles 1978-79

After my Howard Werth post I finally bought The Wild World Of Barney Bubbles, an absolutely fabulous treasure trove of his designs and paintings. He was miles ahead of others during that time, great to read about his influences and concepts.  It also provided a lot of insight of the music scene in those days and the groups/musicians he was close with; Hawkwind, Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, Nick Lowe, Billy Bragg, a.m.o.

Special mention must be made for Jake Riviera as ‘mover & shaker’, a British music business entrepreneur, manager of Costello and Lowe, and co-founder (with Dave Robinson) of Stiff Records.  He was a firm supporter of Barney and in 1977 recruited Bubbles to work with him on an impressive run of designs for record sleeves, posters, badges and advertising and promotional campaigns for Lowe, The Damned, Costello and such performers as Ian Dury, Wreckless Eric and the veteran music hall star Max Wall.

However later that same year Riviera left Stiff, taking with him Barney, Costello and Lowe to the newly launched label Radar Records.  Nick Lowe’s Breaking Glass was the first Radar 45 release and a hit for the new label.  Barney had designed both the Radar Label’s logo and the sleeve for Nick’s hit!

Radar lasted only 2 years before Riviera moved on, again taking key artists and Barney with him, to another new label… But during those 2 years Radar released a lot of good music, besides Costello and Lowe, there were also excellent records by Bram Tchaikovsky, Inmates, 999, Yachts, The Pop Group, a.o.

Several of Radar's early releases (including Iggy Pop and James Williamson's Kill City, the Good Rats' From Rats to Riches and Pezband's Laughing in the Dark) were licensed from independent American labels. 

After reading and thinking about the above I suddenly realized something odd! During my vinyl buying days in the previous century I bought quite a few Stiff and Radar singles, extended plays, and albums. I have good memories of the various Stiff artists compilations (later CDs as well), and downloaded Stiff collections from different blogs, etc. But I never bought a various Radar artists album/CD or found a digital collection online.   

This is because strangely enough Radar never released any such compilation... 

As for why nobody ever considered putting a digital collection together, that's anyone's guess...  Therefore Jokonky proudly announces the arrival of the Radar Records Singles 1978-79 compilation!

Despite the fact that virtually all of regular visitors are probably familiar with Lowe & Costello, I still felt that I had to include them. A perfect candidate was the Nick Lowe single I bought back in 1978: A side - American Squirm with on the B What’s So Funny ‘Bout (Peace, Love and Understanding) by Nick Lowe And His Sound which turned out to be Elvis Costello!

Besides the earlier mentioned Radar artists and groups, there are also: Bette Bright And The Illuminations, Metal Urbain, Neon, Ray Campi (licensed from Rollin’ Rock!), The Red Crayola, The Soft Boys, Sussex, Tanz Der Youth, The Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Visage, and Wayne Kramer.

Holiday Inn Spain - The Field Guide To The Raybeats

At times it can be frustrating to ‘discover’ a band only after they’ve already split up…  I guess I might have encountered some of (The) Raybeats’ instrumentals before on a compilation, but despite my love for this kind of music, somehow it didn’t register enough.

That finally happened once their ‘lost’ 1982 session with Philip Glass was released, because his name for sure piqued my interest. The minimalist guy teaming up with a neo-surf rock combo? Unreal!  Three tracks: Pack Of Camels, Black Beach, and A Sad Little Caper got the full Glass treatment with Michael Riesman on keyboards which certainly made a difference… 

Another sign was the discovery of Neville Brody’s sleeve of their Holiday Inn Spain single…  From there on I backtracked and started listening to their other records as well, which sadly enough weren’t that many.  Altogether they released only 3 albums and a couple of 45s between 1981 - 1984…

The Raybeats formed in 1979 out of the ashes of the New York no-wavers, The Contortions. They decided to focus on Link Wray style guitar instrumentals and combine this with Dick Dale surf/space age/spy movie/no-wave, an interesting mix to say the least!

Lineup was George Scott (bass), Don Christensen (drums), Pat Irwin (guitarist/keyboardist/sax), and Jody Harris (guitar).  Scott sadly enough died of a drug overdose in 1980 and was replaced by Danny Amis (bass, guitar).

Their records output started with an EP Roping Wild Bears (1981), followed by an album, Guitar Beat (1982), which was recorded in England in Martin Rushent’s brand new studio.  According to Greg McLean’s Bar-None rerelease liner notes: This is modern American music-each song a chapter in a Bill Burroughs novel, cutting up sci-fi secret agents with the pulp of travelogues, voodoo recipes and bartending texts. 

Only one more album followed: It’s Only A Movie!, before the band decided to throw in the towel in 1984.  The band members moved on; Jody (The Golden Palominos), Pat (B-52s), and Danny (Los Straightjackets).  

No official compilation was ever released, therefore leave it up to Jokonky to correct this serious omission! It includes several tracks from their albums and as they apparently had quite a reputation as a live band, I added 2 examples from a live Stiff Records album as well. 

Song Book Dury - Jankel

You wandered in upon my life
And haven't lost me yet
Said the turkey to the carving knife:
"What you give is what you get"
A fresh and lovely summer's day
We thought would never end
Said the bloodhound to the stag at bay:
"I thought you were my friend"

Glad To Know You (Chaz Jankel - Ian Dury)

After the Chaz Jankel post I decided to have a look at some of the songs he wrote with Ian Dury and that turned out to be very rewarding. Whereas the first collaborations of New Boots and Panties!! showed a clear division between words (Dury) and music (Jankel), this later became more ‘blurred’, especially with the non-Blockheads songs.

That first album has been rightly acknowledged as a classic and received a full cover treatment in 2001 as Brand New Boots And Panties: A Tribute To Ian Dury.  As far as tributes go, it’s definitely one of the better ones, but as this album is still easily available, I decided to ignore those covers. Instead, I plunged into a digital rabbit hole looking for obscure covers and forgotten Dury-Jankel compositions… The results were not bad, enough for an 18 song CD Song Book! It has to be said though that the focus is really on the first 2 Blockheads albums, plus a few songs that Dury and Jankel wrote for others.

As expected, covers of Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, Sex & Drugs & Rock'n'Roll, and Wake Up And Make Love With Me are plenty, but I think I managed to select some of the more intriguing ones. Perhaps not surprising, everybody’s favorite Spasticus Autisticus gets seldom covered, but I found a decent one. The other Blockheads compositions include: What a Waste, Inbetweenies, and Lullaby For Frances.

Probably best known as the lead vocalist on Freeez’s classic hit single Southern Freeez, Ingrid Mansfield Allman was also involved in Ian Dury’s life. This resulted in a one-off single: The Jam Jar Song / Stop Wasting Your Time, both written by Dury-Jankel, released in 1981! Two years later Chaz recorded Stop Wasting Your Time again, but this time with a singer named Kitty Grant.  And the B-side was a cover of Glad To Know You from Jankel’s solo album Chasanova / Questionnaire!

As for this particular Song Book the lyrics of the songs are way above average I decided to include them all, but the covers do include 3 instrumentals as well! Special thanks to my friend The Dishonorable Edward Pastanga who helped me out with transcribing the lyrics of The Jam Jar Song / Stop Wasting Your Time.  Being British helps a lot I guess ;-)

Like with many songs most parts are easy enough to follow, but sometimes… Using youtube to text didn’t help much, these skipped the same parts I didn’t catch. Weirdest experience was using Grok, who replied correctly that those 2 songs are not on any lyrics site, but suggested me to add a youtube link which would enable it to transcribe those lyrics.  So I did and a few seconds later got the results, which were … interesting, apart from the title Stop Wasting Your Time, everything else was totally different! However I could see that those new lyrics followed the main melody…

Note that other covers can be found on the Stiff Records posts here!

p.s. In hindsight The Jam Jar Song would have been perfect for any of my previous car posts…

Chaz Jankel 50 Years

I guess some think of Chaz Jankel as a one-hit guy with Ai No Corrida, but he has done much, much more and in fact is still musically active!

Chas (the 'z' would come later!) started early with taking musical lessons, first guitar, later piano. At first inspired by Lonnie Donegan's skiffle sounds, his biggest influence was probably Sly and the Family Stone, laying a solid base for his funk and soul work over the years.

He first played professionally with folk-rock band Byzantium as a vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist, but his funky clothes were in sharp contrast with the rest of the band's blue jeans look. Even so, he lasted for 2 albums before moving on to a very different band...

Through a chance meeting with the band's guitarist Chas joined Kilburn & The High Roads, the beginning of a highly successful partnership with the lead singer: Ian Dury. Musically the band were rather odd to say the least, playing a mix of pub rock and music hall style songs with vocals handled by the charismatic Dury. Despite the live reputation their studio recordings didn't sell much and Chas suggested to Ian to try something different...

Exit Kilburn & The High Roads, and welcome Ian Dury and The Blockheads, a very different brew thanks to Chaz(!)'s soul and funk input. Quite a few hits followed but Chaz kept on writing other style songs as well. As these were more suitable for himself he started a solo career with considerable success, songs like Ai No Corrida, Glad To Know You, Number One, a.o., became serious hits.

Besides his occasional work with The Blockheads (even after Ian's death), Chaz has also been active as a composer of soundtracks (D.O.A.), jazz musician (Out of the Blue), and surprisingly enough as a blues guitarist releasing an excellent album with Michael Messer last year.

Although a few compilations of Chaz's solo funk and soul work for A&M have been released over the years, this 19 track collection focuses more on his total career, from his first 1974 solo single One Morning One Evening to I Have Seen The Light from the 2024 album Mostly We Drive. 

There are no recordings of Chaz playing with Kilburn & The High Roads, but I found a later version with him: Ian Dury and The Kilburns' I Made Mary Cry, a rather gruesome tale! Ian Dury's New Boots And Panties!! (2004 Expanded Remaster) album had a lot of bonus tracks of Ian & Chaz making demos together of the tracks, such as I'm Partial To Your Abracadabra, that later would be finalized with The Blockheads.

Highly-respected portrait artist Humphrey Ocean was a close friend of Ian Dury and had briefly played bass in Kilburn & The High Roads. In 1979, the lanky painter had his own novelty song released on Stiff, under the title of Humphrey Ocean & The Hardy Annuals.  The A-side of BUY 29 was Whoops A Daisy, a joint effort by Ocean, Dury, Jankel and one-time Kilburns pianist and co-writer Russell Hardy. This is followed by a selection of tracks from his solo albums, Chasanova / Questionnaire, Chazablanca, and Looking At You.

The remainder of this collection consists of later work, such as one-off single Nicaragua and single tracks from the following albums: Out Of The Blue, Zoom, Greed, Flow, and The Submarine Has Surfaced. 

A song from a later version of The Blockheads is included as well: Greed (radio edit), plus Chaz's tinkering about with the D.O.A. soundtrack...

Bonus track: I'll Always Be Your Friend from Byzantium's 1973 Seasons Changing lp with Chas on lead vocal!

THE BEST OF DANNY ADLER VOLUME 1 - Essential Reading For Elvis Costello Fans!

THE BEST OF DANNY ADLER VOLUME 1

How has it taken me this long to pay tribute to one of my favorites; guitarist, singer, & songwriter DANNY ADLER?

Adler was an original member of Rocket 88 with The Rolling Stones’ Charlie Watts & Ian Stewart, Alexis Korner, & Cream’s Jack Bruce.  He later formed The Deluxe Blues Band with Fleetwood Mac bassist Bob Brunning, & drummer Micky Waller (Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart).  He was even briefly in Elephant’s Memory in 1971 (pre-John & Yoko).  Added to the now long-running partnership of Dave Edmunds & Nick Lowe, Adler briefly made their number uneven as a member of The Disco Brothers.  While they didn’t record, the fourth track here--a bluesier take on Fool Too Long (a staple on Edmunds & Lowe's setlists with Rockpile) gives a glimpse of what they must have sounded like.

Adler paid his dues in black blues clubs, but he also loved jazz, R&B, & rock, and easily plays it all.  I’ll always be grateful that he penned the immortal words: “Cincinnati Fatback, Cincinnati Fatback, that ass kickin' finger lickin' chicken pickin' Cincinnati Fatback.”  It’s easily one of the songs I’d take to a desert island—one I never get tired of—with one of the funkiest grooves ever.  In it, he pays tribute to the fellow Cincinnatians Adler watched & often played with; Hank Ballard, James Brown, “Cleanhead” Vinson, Amos Milburn, Wynonie Harris, H-Bomb Ferguson, Beau Dollar, Lonnie Mack, O.D. Bell & Popeye Maupin.  Cincinnati had a thriving club circuit partly because King Records was based there (on Brewster Avenue) until 1968.

Adler is best known from his time with his pub rock band Roogalator, that Adler put together in London in 1972, and who were one of the first acts signed to Stiff Records for the single All Aboard b/w Cincinnati Fatback.  Label-mate Elvis Costello lifted Adler’s geek in glasses persona and choice of guitar.  As Danny told it to The Cincinnati Enquirer: "I would say he appropriated my visual look," Adler said with a chuckle. "I think it's more than a coincidence that we have the same kind of glasses and he's playing a Jazzmaster. When he first came to see me play, he was kind of a California hippie dude with wire rims and long hair and played acoustic guitar. The next time I saw him he looked like me, with the Jazzmaster and Buddy Holly specks."  Will Birch’s excellent No Sleep Till Canvey Island hints that Jake Riviera persuaded Elvis to appropriate the look.  (I'm told Costello essentially "copped to it" on his SPECTACLE TV series but couldn't find a clip).

Ian Dury’s band Kilburn & The High Roads lifted early member drummer Malcolm Mortimer.  Drummer Bobby Irwin who has played with Van Morrison, Nick Lowe’s Cowboy Outfit, The Sinkers, & The Balham Alligators was a member for a time.  Roogalator’s early press was due to the inclusion of Paul “Bassman” Riley who had played with the popular pub rock band Chilli Willi & The Red Hot Peppers alongside Elvis Costello & The Attractions’ drummer Pete Thomas.

Roogalator nearly signed with Virgin Records, but the label insisted they sign a publishing contract as well as a recording contract.  Constant line-up changes lead to Adler disbanding Roogalator leaving their recorded works limited to three John Peel sessions, one well-received album, and three singles during their lifetime.

But Adler has never stopped performing his Gusha Gusha Music.  And he can still play the hell out of his signature tune.  He’s released his catalogue via band camp, and I urge you to spend some of your hard-earned dough over there, or downloading them on iTunes.  A sampling of his output is available at: https://dannyadler.com/masterworks-legacy-series-one-sheets

Regular vistors know we're big fans of  STIFF Records around here.  THE ROOGALATOR’s Cincinnati Fatback was the third single released by STIFF Records.

THE BEST OF BOBBY TENCH VOL. 1 & 2

THE BEST OF BOBBY TENCH VOL. 1 & 2 

BOBBY TENCH was vocalist/rhythm guitarist in the band GASS when Jeff Beck chose him to replace Rod Stewart in THE JEFF BECK GROUP in 1970.  In ’71, he played guitar with Cream’s drummer Ginger Baker under the pseudonym Bobby Gass.  In 1974 & 1975, he joined guitar god Freddie King for his Burglar & Larger Than Life albums.

Next was a stint with CHAPMAN WHITNEY STREETWALKERS with whom he did two Peel Sessions that are represented here.  Tench then recorded with the band Hummingbird, & former Mott The Hoople/Spooky Tooth guitarist Luther Grosvenor’s band WIDOWMAKER, and BOXER.  

If he stopped there, Tench would have had an impressive career—but in 1978 he joined VAN MORRISON’s band for the album Wavelength and sixty-two live dates which included the 1979 set recorded and released as Van’s Live At The Roxy album.   

To start off the 80’s. Tench joined a little band called HUMBLE PIE for their last two albums On To Victory, & Go For The Throat.  He released two singles, Still In Love With You on Stiff Records, and Chain Gang on Germany’s Line Records, and played on The Clash’s Topper Headon’s Waking Up album.

Along the way, he also played on albums by The Wailer’s Junior Marvin, Eric Burdon, Alan Price, Axis Point, & Hanson (not that Hanson).  

There are cuts by most of these bands on this two volume set: THE BEST OF BOBBY TENCH.

Everybody’s On The Short List - The Songs Of Mickey Jupp

My first introduction to Mickey Jupp was his first solo album in 1978 for Stiff Records: Juppanese, the main attraction for me being the A side as that was produced by Nick Lowe with Rockpile as the backing band, but the Gary Brooker produced B side (with Chris Spedding!) turned out to be just as good!

Next was a jump back in time with Mickey Jupp's Legend, a compilation of his earlier Legend tracks, very enjoyable work.

1979 brought us Long Distance Romancer, a rather different cup of tea as it was produced by 10CC’s Godley & Creme who played along as well.

Personally this is still one of my Jupp favorites despite the man himself considered it overproduced…

1980’s Oxford was a bit of a disappointment I thought, but 2 years later Some People Can’t Dance appeared and thoroughly enjoyable again.

Another thing I began to notice was Mr. Jupp’s songs being covered left and right, by Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Dr. Feelgood, a.m.o., Roger Chapman even named his backing band after a Jupp classic!

Over the years (in Thailand) I lost track Mr. Jupp’s activities but the 2014 Kiss Me Quick Squeeze Me Slow: The Collection was (& still is!) a great 3xCD refresher course.

However an overview of his songs covered has never been released, which made it a perfect subject for another JOKONKY compilation.

For some reason loads of Scandinavian bands revere Mickey massively and have covered his work, therefore The Refreshments had to be included.

One of Mickey’s personal highlights was a (kind of) collaboration with Leiber & Stoller on He Could Have Been An Army for Elkie Brooks!

There’s even a hit courtesy of The Judds’ Tears For You.

Other artists & bands doing their Juppanese best are Dave Edmunds, Rockpile, Dr. Feelgood, Gary Brooker, Ricky Nelson, Roger Chapman, Jesse Taylor, Chris Farlowe, Kursaal Flyers, Great White, Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons, Delbert McClinton, and Latimore.

Not surprising some songs (Switchboard Susan, Down At The Doctors, etc.) have more than one cover, but even tracks from the Legend period (Cheque Book & Cross Country) are tackled as well.

Also included are a few Jupp obscurities from vinyl compilations, Live In London Vol. 1 and Southend Rock, plus some classics to compare!