Phew & the long-lost Japanese import album

extracted from "Totally Shuffled-A Year of Listening to Music on a Broken iPod"

May 26^th

Phew-P-Adic-Phew

This was one of those albums which I should have got hold of when I had the chance, but never did. I saw it in the import section of Probe Records in Liverpool. Even back in 1981 it cost an arm and a leg. 

It was a Japanese import and had those cool wrapped paper bands running vertically on the left hand side of the sleeve covered in Japanese script. It was a plain white sleeve with a single photograph of a woman on the cover (who I presumed was Phew), horizontally across the middle of the sleeve about an inch high. The only script on the cover was the word “Phew” in small typeface under the photograph. The whole thing was shrink wrapped with nothing but a sticker on the outside indicating a price of £20 or so. (I can’t remember the exact figure but I do know it was hideously expensive-even now £20 would be a fair bit to pay for an album, but back in 1981 when I was only getting £28 a week dole and rent was £14 per week, it would have been a level of extravagance that would have left me without any money for food). 

I did seriously consider it though-it looked such a good record but, as I didn’t know anything about it or the artist at all; it was just a step too far. This didn’t stop me from going back into Probe a number of times over the next couple of weeks and toying with the album. I knew they’d only have this one copy and I did get extremely close to buckling under one Friday when I’d just cashed my giro.  In the end I bottled it-I went back a last time and it had gone; to be bought by someone else who clearly had money to burn or who actually knew who (or what) Phew was. That was it I thought-I’d missed the opportunity and put it all down to experience and a lack of liquid funds.

Fast forward about twenty years to the real advent of the internet, and the easier availability of obscure music. In the late 90’s although I was stuck with dial-up internet connections, the initial Napster had just arrived, and somewhere out of the depths I remembered that long elusive Phew album. 

However, I was to remain disappointed. Despite having over 25 million users (me being one of them) at its peak, Phew remained off the radar and searches provided nothing. Other torrent sites similarly found nothing. There was nothing on Google either. Not one word. Had I dreamed the whole thing up? Did it really exist?  Maybe I was destined never to hear this (possibly non-existent) album.

I never wholly gave up however,and every so often I’d look on the net for Phew, but to no avail. Shortly before the iPod stuck on being unable to resync, and therefore ended up preserved in electronic and musical amber, I found a music blog (these becoming more and more prevalent), which had posted a whole bunch of the most obscure and esoteric music that could be imagined. As I scrolled down the alphabetical sidebar listing the artists on the site (the vast majority of which I’d never heard of), I was stopped in my tracks on the letter P and the entry under Phew. Surely it couldn’t be, could it? As I clicked on the link, there it was though-plain white sleeve and small photograph- just as I’d imagined it. It was as if a quest had been completed-I felt like Frodo in Lord of The Rings.

(After all that, what’s the album like? It’s good-electronic-y, avant -garde and jazz-tinged, with Phew belting it out in Japanese. I cannot honestly say that it’s one of my favourite records of all time, but I’m glad that I managed to finally hear it).  

 

"Totally Shuffled" is available here as a Kindle book (bit of a massive tome; 600 or so pages)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00CJYZ3CA 

and here as a paperback (Part 1:The First Six Months) 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Broken-iPod-/dp/149495687X

 

This is what it ("Totally Shuffled", the book) is all about:

One track per day for 366 days on a broken iPod. 366 tracks out of a possible 9553.

From the obvious (The Rolling Stones), to the obscure (Karen Cooper Complex). 

From the sublime (The Flaming Lips) to the risible (Muse). 

From field recordings of Haitian Voodoo music to The Monkees. 

From Heavy Metal to Rap by way of 1930’s blues, jazz, classical, punk, and every possible genre of music in between. 

This is what I listened to and wrote about for a whole year, to the point of never wanting to hear any more music again. 

Some songs I listened to I loved, and some I hated. 

Some artists ended up getting praised to the skies and others received a bit of critical kicking. 

There’s memories of spending too many hours in record shops, prevaricating over the next big thing and surprising myself over tracks that I’d completely forgotten about. 

But with 40 years of listening to music, I realised that I’ll never get sick of it. 

I may have fallen out of love with some of the songs in this book, but I’ll never fall out of love with music.   

 

The Full List of all the Artists


Like me, there must be some artists you love, some you don't love and some you've probably not heard of.

Or never want to hear again.

But that's the way it goes with nearly 10,000 tracks to shuffle through at random.

These are the artists in the order they shuffled up on my iPod, starting on January 1st and finishing on December 31st.

  

January

The Clash/ Half Man Half Biscuit/ Steinski /Carl Smith with the Carter Sisters & Mother Maybelle

Big Star/ The Upsettters / AC/DC /Buddy Holly/Wilco/Joy Division/High Rise

Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir/Jackie Brenston

William & Versey Smith/Boards of Canada/Randy Newman/The Blue Nile/The Chords

Wire/Steely Dan/Mercury Rev/Sigur Ros/Massive Attack v Mad Professor

Steve Reich/TheSugarcubes/U2/A Sudden Sway/Laura Cantrell/Genesis

Mbuti Pygmies of the Iruti Rainforest/The Sisters of Mercy

February

Holy Fuck/ Swans/The Sundays/My Bloody Valentine/Ja-Man

Charles Wright & the 103^rd Street Rhythm Band/Juana Molina/Sparklehorse/ The White Stripes

New Order/Dennis McGee & Ernest Fruge/Beethoven/ You.May.Die.In.The.Desert

Kate Bush/Cabaret Voltaire/Blind Lemon Jefferson/Bill Drummond/Gong

The Hold Steady/Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston/ Sunn O)))/Crass

Jelly Roll Morton/Grandmaster Flash/Led Zeppelin/Status Quo

March

Karen Cooper Complex/Spiritualized/Professor Longhair/Coldplay

Dee Clark/Prince/Teenage Jesus & The Jerks/Jeff Buckley

Young Marble Giants/Rovo/Lazy Lester/She & Him

Voodoo Ceremony in Haiti/Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers/The Woodentops

Tinariwen/Blind Blake/ Arctic Monkeys/Van Morrison/Burial/Boozoo Chavais/Teenage Fanclub

Mogwai/Nirvana/Girls/Skip James/The Lemonheads/Air Traffic Controllers

A Gril Called Eddy/ Aztec Camera/Goldfrapp

April

Evil Gazebo/ The Durutti Column/Cymbals Eat Guitars/Swell Maps/Warren Smith

The Go-Betweens/Fats Domino/Joanna Newsom/Dave Dudley/Fleetwood Mac/Lightnin Hopkins

Neil Young/Chin Up Chin Up/The Jesus Lizard/Mel & Tim/XTC/Faron Young/Electro Hippies

Rev. Gary Davies/ Robyn Hitchcock/Lee Perry/Fuck Buttons/Portastatic/The Jesus & Mary Chain

Blind Willie Davis/The Misunderstood/ The Art of Noise/The Feelies/Francoise Hardy

The Rolling Stones

May

Dracula’s Daughter/American Music Club/Godspeed You! Black Emperor/Echo & the Bunnymen

Link Davis/Television/This Mortal Coil/Elder Curry/Vampire Weekend/Scritti Politti/Battles

Immortal Technique/Pavement/Jad Fair/The Everly Brothers/Impact All Stars

Hambone Wille Newbern/The Zimmermen/Chic/Buzzcocks/Ellis Regina & Toots Theilman

The Silver/Lights In A Fat City/Althea & Donna/Phew!/Eddie & Ernie/Sly & The Family Stone/

The Parliaments/The Ruts/Muddy Waters

June

Captain Beefheart/Emmylou Harris/Jimmy Rodgers/Bob Dylan/Lush/Foetus Interruptus

Johnny Cash/Lattie Moore/Satan Alfa Beel Atem/Freddie Hall/The Ravens/Robert Parker

David Sylvian/The Stone Roses/Charlie Parker/SonnyBoy Williamson/Steve Earle/Tiny Bradshaw

Lonnie Johnson/Blind Alred Reed/Southside Johnny/The Showstoppers/L/Roy Orbison/The KLF

Tony Bennett/The Chantells/The Nightingales/Luciole

July

Some Chicken/The Meters/Kris Kristofferson/Rev A W Nix/The Flaming Lips/Big In Japan/Morphine

The Greenhornes/Ron Sexsmith/DoMaJe/Girls At Our Best! /The Masterdon Committee

Umm Kulthun/Alton Ellis & The Flames/James Brown/Brownsville Station/ The O’Jays

Jimmy Lewis/Tom Archia/Big Youth/The Smiths/The Fuckers/Nat King Cole/The 012/Group Doueh

Louis Prima/Jonsi & Alex/Carolina Buddies/Jerry Lee Lewis/Lori & The Chameleons/Dogie O’Dell

August

Frank Sinatra/Roy Head/Lara & the Trailers/King Solomon Hill/Central African Pygmies

The Beach Boys/The Pixies/ Billy Ward & His Dominos/Shep & The Limelites/The Adverts

Los Campesinos!/Elmore James/”Do you ever have a night when you don’t dream about The Fall?”

Aramic Wedding Chants/Camille/The Anemic Boyfriends/Trinity/Prefab Sprout/Bobby Marchan

The Grateful Dead/A Certain Ratio/The Beta Band/The Bell Rays/ DJ Food/

Booby Saffron & The Postal Bargains/Miles Davis/Anne Peebles/Marvin Rainwater

The Manavishnu Orchestra/Culture/Clannad 

September

Gormenghast/Tammy Wynette/Wah! Heat/Mississipi John Hurt/The Henchman/Elvis Costello

The Velvetones/Mott the Hoople/ Armando/Walter “Kid” Smith /Junior Parker/Sandy Denny

The The/The Pilgrim Travellers/Muslimgauze/The Marvelettes/Elf Power/Ry Cooder

Johnny Burnette Trio/Big Amos/Johnnie Taylor/Ronny Jordan/Brahms/John Coltrane/ O V Wright

The Fall/George Jones/The Gang of Four/Pink Floyd/Mickey Lee Lewis

October

Young Fresh Fellows/ the passage/System Fucker/The Bays/Molton Rock/De La Soul/Muse

Popol Vuh/Schubert/Curtis Mayfield/Joe South/The Beat/Sleepy John Estes/Bruce Springsteen

I Roy/Soledad Brothers/Roshell Anderson/Louis Armstrong/The Nitecaps/The Clovers

Clarence Ashby/Emitt Rhodes/Black Uhuru/Gram Parsons/Chuck Willis/Johnny Fortune/

Blind Willie McTell/Dinosaur Jr./Charles Brown

November

Billie Holliday/Rocketship/Johnny Dove & the Magnolia Playboys/MGMT/Chrome/Blue Angel

Little Axe/The Delgados/Mahler/Novem/Siouxsie & The Banshees/Charlie Mingus/The Monkees

P J Harvey/Riley Puckett/Roger Miller/The Sonics/Louis Jordan/The Raincoats/Paul McCartney

Tampa Red & Georgia Tom/ The Upholsterers/Kristina Bruuk/Green Bailey/The Blue Orchids

Harry Pussy/Shostakovich/The National/Don Covay/K T Tunstall

December

Bill Monroe/Sonic Youth/Electric Light Orchestra/Johnny Adams/The Cocteau Twins/Squeeze

The Latin Playboys/The Cherry Pies/Stevie Wonder/Toussaint McCall/Eva Cassidy

Howling Wolf/Crowded House/Stanley Winston/The Velvet Underground

Pat Metheny/Elbow/Alternative TV /Long Gone Miles/The Pernice Brothers/Paddy McAloon

Al Green/Talking Heads/Radiohead/AMM/Smokey Robinson & The Miracles/

Big Black/Joni Mitchell/Madonna/The Birthday Party/Honeyboy

 

Totally Shuffled extract-Record shops

extracted from "Totally Shuffled-A Year of Listening to Music on a Broken iPod" and in advance of Record Store Day 2016....

June 6^th

Foetus Interruptus-Fin-Thaw

Record shops are increasingly becoming a thing of the past. Sadly. They’ll become stuff of legend and myth within the next couple of decades. I’ll be sitting my grandchildren on my knee and telling them tales of hours spent browsing for strange flat, round 12” artefacts just in order to listen to music. They’ll listen wide-eyed and incredulously about the hours wasted in vain attempts to get hold of “rare” songs imported across the ocean from America in numbers of less than the fingers of one hand. They’ll be staggered at the exorbitant prices that used to be paid for just one record and that generally music was so difficult to obtain. Maybe they’ll see recorded music as a bit odd in itself. (Recorded music, after all, is just a blip that’s only been around for 100 years or so. By the end of the 21^st century it may be looked upon as a technological and cultural dead-end. Like a harpsichord). 

(Let me tell you a story).

Anyway, I’ve spend many, many happy hours in record shops up and down the U.K. (And many costly hours as well).  I can’t actually remember the last time that I spent any significant period browsing ,but I have a feeling that those days are gone forever. I’ll start from the North and work my way down South in respect of the most memorable record shops that played such a large part in my life.

1. One Up Records, Aberdeen.

This would have been in the early 1980’s when I worked for a while in the Granite City. There was a Virgin store in Aberdeen which was ok, but One Up was a small indie store just off Union Street in the city centre. It was slightly similar to Probe Records in Liverpool (more of that soon), but staffed by dour-as-fuck Scots and therefore a much jollier retail experience than Probe. One Up was, I think, next door to a café-which was useful. It must have previously operated as a different sort of shop as all the walls were at weird angles; which wasn’t conducive for housing racks of vinyl records. Having said that, they had a great selection of really indie stuff-lots of records from the USA and post punk singles from around the world. If you’d heard, say a 7” single played on Peel’s show by an unpronounceable Polish hardcore band on a Wednesday night, then One Up would have it ( or know of it and be able to get it for you), via some circuitous route from Gdansk across the North Sea by the following week. There were plenty of singles I got from there purely on the basis that they seemed obscure and therefore which I hoped they would be the next-big-thing. (Never worked out like that). Two other facts; there record bags were cool and if you hung around long enough they’d always make you a cup of tea).

2. Probe Records, Liverpool.

I’ve already gone on at length about Probe so I won’t reiterate things too much. However, it was a little wonderful trove of records in Mathew Street, Liverpool and staffed by the most fucking miserable condescending bunch of know-alls in the whole retail sector. There is an apocryphal story (which rings so true) about a hapless punter who wandered in off the street one day and asked in all innocence, “Do you have Phil Collins’ new album?” “Yes”, came the reply. “Can I have it please then?” “Er, no.”  That just about sums it up. But, for their selection of records, it couldn’t be beaten and that’s why I spent many hours in there browsing away, and many pounds that I couldn’t really afford crossed the counter into their coffers. (Unlike in Aberdeen, you’d never get a brew from them).

3. Penny Lane Records, Liverpool.

Although they must have had a shop in the actual Penny Lane, this one was in the city centre. I think that it’s now an opticians. Maybe bad sight has increased at the same rate as record shops have declined. Penny Lane was up a flight of stairs on the first floor above some sort of fashion shop. It was a bit like Probe (indie shop but not so much indie (music)), but it did have a really good selection of reggae albums, including loads of dub, and what seemed to be the whole ECM catalogue on vinyl. When New Order played the State Ballroom in Liverpool, the only place you could get tickets from was Penny Lane. The shop suddenly closed down-it must have gone bust- one day it was there and the next it was gone. I wonder what happened to all those unsold ECM records.

4. Virgin Records, Oxford Street, London

Not the megastore Virgin, but a strange little Virgin store that co-existed at the same time as the megastore was growing. It was halfway down Oxford Street in a sort of arcade of shops and must have been forgotten about by Branson as it seemed to be a bit of throwback. It only appeared to have in stock weird rock albums from Germany and Japan and obscure old hippy albums although there was a section of industrial oddness- which is where I got hold of the first Foetus album, “Deaf” (which is now worth a fortune and which I sold for buttons ages ago. Grr). I could never have imagined of being able to go into any of the Virgin megastores and being able to buy a Foetus record. 

I wonder what they were thinking of. 

"Totally Shuffled" is available here as a Kindle book (bit of a massive tome; 600 or so pages)


http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00CJYZ3CA



and here as a paperback (Part 1:The First Six Months)


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Broken-iPod-/dp/149495687X



This is what it ("Totally Shuffled", the book) is all about:


One track per day for 366 days on a broken iPod. 366 tracks out of a possible 9553.


From the obvious (The Rolling Stones), to the obscure (Karen Cooper Complex).


From the sublime (The Flaming Lips) to the risible (Muse).


From field recordings of Haitian Voodoo music to The Monkees.


From Heavy Metal to Rap by way of 1930’s blues, jazz, classical, punk, and every possible genre of music in between.



This is what I listened to and wrote about for a whole year, to the point of never wanting to hear any more music again.


Some songs I listened to I loved, and some I hated.


Some artists ended up getting praised to the skies and others received a bit of critical kicking.

There’s memories of spending too many hours in record shops, prevaricating over the next big thing and surprising myself over tracks that I’d completely forgotten about.


But with 40 years of listening to music, I realised that I’ll never get sick of it.


I may have fallen out of love with some of the songs in this book, but I’ll never fall out of love with music.







The Full List of all the Artists

Like me, there must be some artists you love, some you don't love and some you've probably not heard of.

Or never want to hear again.


But that's the way it goes with nearly 10,000 tracks to shuffle through at random.


These are the artists in the order they shuffled up on my iPod, starting on January 1st and finishing on December 31st.

January

The Clash/ Half Man Half Biscuit/ Steinski /Carl Smith with the Carter Sisters & Mother Maybelle

Big Star/ The Upsettters / AC/DC /Buddy Holly/Wilco/Joy Division/High Rise

Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir/Jackie Brenston

William & Versey Smith/Boards of Canada/Randy Newman/The Blue Nile/The Chords

Wire/Steely Dan/Mercury Rev/Sigur Ros/Massive Attack v Mad Professor

Steve Reich/TheSugarcubes/U2/A Sudden Sway/Laura Cantrell/Genesis

Mbuti Pygmies of the Iruti Rainforest/The Sisters of Mercy

February

Holy Fuck/ Swans/The Sundays/My Bloody Valentine/Ja-Man

Charles Wright & the 103^rd Street Rhythm Band/Juana Molina/Sparklehorse/ The White Stripes

New Order/Dennis McGee & Ernest Fruge/Beethoven/ You.May.Die.In.The.Desert

Kate Bush/Cabaret Voltaire/Blind Lemon Jefferson/Bill Drummond/Gong

The Hold Steady/Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston/ Sunn O)))/Crass

Jelly Roll Morton/Grandmaster Flash/Led Zeppelin/Status Quo

March

Karen Cooper Complex/Spiritualized/Professor Longhair/Coldplay

Dee Clark/Prince/Teenage Jesus & The Jerks/Jeff Buckley

Young Marble Giants/Rovo/Lazy Lester/She & Him

Voodoo Ceremony in Haiti/Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers/The Woodentops

Tinariwen/Blind Blake/ Arctic Monkeys/Van Morrison/Burial/Boozoo Chavais/Teenage Fanclub

Mogwai/Nirvana/Girls/Skip James/The Lemonheads/Air Traffic Controllers

A Gril Called Eddy/ Aztec Camera/Goldfrapp

April

Evil Gazebo/ The Durutti Column/Cymbals Eat Guitars/Swell Maps/Warren Smith

The Go-Betweens/Fats Domino/Joanna Newsom/Dave Dudley/Fleetwood Mac/Lightnin Hopkins

Neil Young/Chin Up Chin Up/The Jesus Lizard/Mel & Tim/XTC/Faron Young/Electro Hippies

Rev. Gary Davies/ Robyn Hitchcock/Lee Perry/Fuck Buttons/Portastatic/The Jesus & Mary Chain

Blind Willie Davis/The Misunderstood/ The Art of Noise/The Feelies/Francoise Hardy

The Rolling Stones

May

Dracula’s Daughter/American Music Club/Godspeed You! Black Emperor/Echo & the Bunnymen

Link Davis/Television/This Mortal Coil/Elder Curry/Vampire Weekend/Scritti Politti/Battles

Immortal Technique/Pavement/Jad Fair/The Everly Brothers/Impact All Stars

Hambone Wille Newbern/The Zimmermen/Chic/Buzzcocks/Ellis Regina & Toots Theilman

The Silver/Lights In A Fat City/Althea & Donna/Phew!/Eddie & Ernie/Sly & The Family Stone/

The Parliaments/The Ruts/Muddy Waters

June

Captain Beefheart/Emmylou Harris/Jimmy Rodgers/Bob Dylan/Lush/Foetus Interruptus

Johnny Cash/Lattie Moore/Satan Alfa Beel Atem/Freddie Hall/The Ravens/Robert Parker

David Sylvian/The Stone Roses/Charlie Parker/SonnyBoy Williamson/Steve Earle/Tiny Bradshaw

Lonnie Johnson/Blind Alred Reed/Southside Johnny/The Showstoppers/L/Roy Orbison/The KLF

Tony Bennett/The Chantells/The Nightingales/Luciole

July

Some Chicken/The Meters/Kris Kristofferson/Rev A W Nix/The Flaming Lips/Big In Japan/Morphine

The Greenhornes/Ron Sexsmith/DoMaJe/Girls At Our Best! /The Masterdon Committee

Umm Kulthun/Alton Ellis & The Flames/James Brown/Brownsville Station/ The O’Jays

Jimmy Lewis/Tom Archia/Big Youth/The Smiths/The Fuckers/Nat King Cole/The 012/Group Doueh

Louis Prima/Jonsi & Alex/Carolina Buddies/Jerry Lee Lewis/Lori & The Chameleons/Dogie O’Dell

August

Frank Sinatra/Roy Head/Lara & the Trailers/King Solomon Hill/Central African Pygmies

The Beach Boys/The Pixies/ Billy Ward & His Dominos/Shep & The Limelites/The Adverts

Los Campesinos!/Elmore James/”Do you ever have a night when you don’t dream about The Fall?”

Aramic Wedding Chants/Camille/The Anemic Boyfriends/Trinity/Prefab Sprout/Bobby Marchan

The Grateful Dead/A Certain Ratio/The Beta Band/The Bell Rays/ DJ Food/

Booby Saffron & The Postal Bargains/Miles Davis/Anne Peebles/Marvin Rainwater

The Manavishnu Orchestra/Culture/Clannad 

September

Gormenghast/Tammy Wynette/Wah! Heat/Mississipi John Hurt/The Henchman/Elvis Costello

The Velvetones/Mott the Hoople/ Armando/Walter “Kid” Smith /Junior Parker/Sandy Denny

The The/The Pilgrim Travellers/Muslimgauze/The Marvelettes/Elf Power/Ry Cooder

Johnny Burnette Trio/Big Amos/Johnnie Taylor/Ronny Jordan/Brahms/John Coltrane/ O V Wright

The Fall/George Jones/The Gang of Four/Pink Floyd/Mickey Lee Lewis

October

Young Fresh Fellows/ the passage/System Fucker/The Bays/Molton Rock/De La Soul/Muse

Popol Vuh/Schubert/Curtis Mayfield/Joe South/The Beat/Sleepy John Estes/Bruce Springsteen

I Roy/Soledad Brothers/Roshell Anderson/Louis Armstrong/The Nitecaps/The Clovers

Clarence Ashby/Emitt Rhodes/Black Uhuru/Gram Parsons/Chuck Willis/Johnny Fortune/

Blind Willie McTell/Dinosaur Jr./Charles Brown

November

Billie Holliday/Rocketship/Johnny Dove & the Magnolia Playboys/MGMT/Chrome/Blue Angel

Little Axe/The Delgados/Mahler/Novem/Siouxsie & The Banshees/Charlie Mingus/The Monkees

P J Harvey/Riley Puckett/Roger Miller/The Sonics/Louis Jordan/The Raincoats/Paul McCartney

Tampa Red & Georgia Tom/ The Upholsterers/Kristina Bruuk/Green Bailey/The Blue Orchids

Harry Pussy/Shostakovich/The National/Don Covay/K T Tunstall

December

Bill Monroe/Sonic Youth/Electric Light Orchestra/Johnny Adams/The Cocteau Twins/Squeeze

The Latin Playboys/The Cherry Pies/Stevie Wonder/Toussaint McCall/Eva Cassidy

Howling Wolf/Crowded House/Stanley Winston/The Velvet Underground

Pat Metheny/Elbow/Alternative TV /Long Gone Miles/The Pernice Brothers/Paddy McAloon

Al Green/Talking Heads/Radiohead/AMM/Smokey Robinson & The Miracles/

Big Black/Joni Mitchell/Madonna/The Birthday Party/Honeyboy

Totally Shuffled extract-Evil Gazebo/Pankhurst

Extracted from "Totally Shuffled-A Year of Listening to Music on a Broken iPod". For reasons that will become clear if you manage to trawl your way through this piece, there isn't, I'm afraid, a clip on  YouTube that I can share with you as much as I'd love to. Maybe some day...

Evil Gazebo/Pankhurst-split 7” single

One of the rarest records I’ve ever had and one that survived the immense clear-out of my vinyl collection. (There will, I think, be a piece about the tragic year-zero clear-out later on. A tale of eternal regrets in return for small amounts of cash). 

 This record, along with “Highway 61 Revisited”, “Swoon” by Prefab Sprout, “Dragnet” by The Fall and The Baby Astronauts, “All The Pancakes You Can Eat”, is one of the few remaining artefacts of the days when vinyl was king. 

Why, out of all the few hundred records I had, did this one survive the cull of 1998? A good question, and looking back, there were quite a few others I wish I hadn’t got rid of.

However, this was yet another record I got from Probe in Liverpool. (I really must do more about Probe-it does warrant 500 words for itself).

But without heading too much into that, they used to keep on the counter a file, a normal lever arch file, with forthcoming releases scribbled upon separate sheets of paper, week by week. This was before the days of the internet obviously. It was always worth glancing through this folder to see what was on the horizon. 

Probe, being fairly elitist, wouldn’t list any of the major label releases, but only the ones they thought were interesting. I’m sure that sometimes they just made things up to lead customers astray. This single wasn’t on the list though it was in the shop on a quiet Monday morning. Most of the singles, were as usual, stored behind the counter, but they did have a box you could browse through. This was usually comprised of U.S. imports and anything that would seem as obscure as possible. They’d all be on small indie labels you’d never heard of, based in Nowheresville, with archetypal indie sleeves and would always be bands you never heard of either. A smattering of coloured vinyl completed the equation. 

It was to my surprise that Monday morning that I came across a single in a plain white sleeve. In fact it wasn’t a minimalistic arty white sleeve, but just a normal single sleeve with a hole in the middle for the label. The label was plain as well, just a plain paper label with nothing printed on it. The only inscription was in biro. On one side it read “Evil Gazebo”, and on the other it read “Pankhurst”. It was a kind of curiosity piqued in reverse for me as there was so little to go on.

I asked the bloke behind the counter about it and if he knew what it was. Suffice it to say that the staff in Probe made Jack Black in “High Fidelity” look like a paragon of customer service, but he genuinely had no clue what it was. Because it was so unlike anything else in the box, I bought it simply on impulse. After all, it could have been potentially something very rare-something recorded by an artist under another name, a rare white label by New Order, Sonic Youth or even The Fall. It could have been the vinyl equivalent of Wonka’s Golden Ticket.   

On returning home, I hurriedly took it from the sleeve (treating it just like a Golden Ticket), and slapped it on the record player. I thought that it may have been an e.p., but there was only one track on each side. Nothing was scratched into the run-out grooves, not even a serial number. Until I listened to it, the whole thing was a mystery. 

I played the Evil Gazebo song first-largely because that’s what I presumed the a-side was. It was either a massive piss-take by The Fall or an inept sub-goth/arthouse band. The production was awful; muddied vocals, drums so far down in the mix it was as if they had been playing in a studio on the other side of the road, and a bass that seemed to be played by a one-handed primate on loan from Chester Zoo. The guitar wasn’t too bad though-it added a bit of a shimmer. I had no idea what they were singing about though-the vocalist was either hopelessly overcome with nerves or was pretentiously singing so quietly for effect. 

I turned the single over expecting more of the same. 

Guess what? It was completely and utterly different-poles apart. The production qualities were just the same and the musical abilities seemed to be even more rudimentary than the a-side. 

However, stylistically, it was a whole other thing. In place of the mumbling, slow and whispered male vocals on the a- side, here were screechy, agitated, very very angry women bellowing into the mic and so high in the mix it was as if they were perched on your eardrums.

 Again, I couldn’t really make out much of what they were going on about however as the sound was so overloaded and distorted. I did catch the odd shouts of “men”, “bastards” and “kill them all”.

It was a little bit scary. The only comparison musically would be a mix of Crass, The Raincoats and somewhat ironically, AC/DC. 

It gradually dawned on me that “Evil Gazebo” and “Pankhurst” weren’t titles of songs but were two different bands. So what did I have? A split single rarity in the same vein as the Sonic Youth/Mudhoney classic maybe? I could have been sitting on a fortune. It was because of this that the record survived the mass extinction; like some anachronistic marsupial marooned after the ice age it remained unscathed.

For the next decade or so I kept my eyes peeled in the music press to see if I had inadvertently  bought an underground classic by bands who went on to do bigger and better things. (I don’t think that Evil Gazebo could do otherwise-they couldn’t get any worse and certainly couldn’t get any smaller). They was nothing, not even a reference in Record Collector, so the whole thing remained an enigma to me.

Until about 18 months or so ago. 

Trawling through the net for something else, I came across a reference to a track called “Swirling Clouds of Despair and Loss” by a band called Gasebo. Could it be? The title made sense-it seemed to fit. This reference was simply within an archived playlist from a radio station in Des Moines, Radio WAFJ. 

A bit more searching on their archives led me to a sort of Holy Grail, in that back in April 2001 they had played a track called “All the Young Men Walk in Line” by Evil Gazebo. The titles of both songs though bore no resemblance to my single, and regrettably it appeared that Radio WAFJ had closed for good in 2005 after intense lobbying by Christian fundamentalists. The station had unwisely played a 12 hour Crass marathon and the airing of “Christ the Album” tipped it over the edge.

To this day I have carried on, every so often searching the internet. References to both Evil Gazebo and Pankhurst have cropped up every now and then, but only tangentially. This is what I do know. 

They weren’t from somewhere deep and obscure in the heart of America and therefore exotic. Evil Gazebo were from Runcorn, Cheshire and Pankhurst originated in Goosnargh, near Preston in Lancashire. 

They gigged infrequently across the North West of England during the early 1990’s. Evil Gazebo were referred to at various times as a goth band, New Romantics, post-punk and even as “progressive rock in the same tradition as Yes”. They issued two cassette singles (which I’d love to hear) and nothing else. 

Pankhurst never released any music-whether by accident or design, I don’t know. According to a footnote in a blog about alternative music in Lancashire, they were an extremely militant feminist band and would only ever play women-only gigs. There seemed to be no connection between the bands at all-nothing in common, either musically, politically, personally or geographically. How come they were (apparently) sharing the same piece of vinyl? This was an endless mystery until three weeks ago, when idly reading a lifestyle piece in the Observer Magazine I came across what could be the missing piece of the jigsaw.

In a puff piece with the “cutting-edge” interior designer from “the North of England” (aren’t we all in the eyes of the Observer Magazine), one Neville Broadhurst,gave a passing reference to his life before stressed concrete and rehabilitation of woodchip wallpaper as a bassist in a small band called Evil Gazebo. Furthermore, when pushed, he put his change in career direction to the band breaking up after he embarked upon a relationship with the violinist with their musical nemeses, an unnamed, strident, lesbian, feminist band from Preston: (Pankhurst?). 

To this day, Neville looks upon this episode with regret and sadness-the only good that came out of it was his marriage to the said violinist, one Julie Plumpton, who now works as a full-time mother and a part-time chiropractor.

It still makes me wonder how the single came into existence. 

Quite frankly, the songs are a load of rubbish, but I’ll always keep hold of it-just for the mystery.        

(Extract number 99. 1.4.12.)      

Get/read/see more of "Totally Shuffled" here 

Kindle e book 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Music-Broken-ebook/dp/B00CJYZ3CA

Paperback

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Broken-iPod-The/dp/149495687X 

and this is what "Totally Shuffled" is all about:

One track per day for 366 days on a broken iPod. 

366 tracks out of a possible 9553. 

From the obvious (The Rolling Stones), to the obscure (Karen Cooper Complex). From the sublime (The Flaming Lips) to the risible (Muse).  

From field recordings of Haitian Voodoo music to The Monkees. From Heavy Metal to Rap by way of 1930’s blues, jazz, classical, punk, and every possible genre of music in between. 

This is what I listened to and wrote about for a whole year, to the point of never wanting to hear any more music again. Some songs I listened to I loved, and some I hated. Some artists ended up getting praised to the skies and others received a bit of critical kicking. 

There’s memories of spending too many hours in record shops, prevaricating over the next big thing and surprising myself over tracks that I’d completely forgotten about. 

But with 40 years of listening to music, I realised that I’ll never get sick of it.   

I may have fallen out of love with some of the songs in this book, but I’ll never fall out of love with music.