My Peel Tapes: Part 10

Morning my beauties,

first of all: please forgive me if the gaps between the posts tend to become longer and longer, but as the weather is really perfect these days, I simply prefer to be out in the garden than sitting inside in front of the computer. But today I have a quiet day at work and will use this rare opportunity to delight you with Pt. 10 of 'My Peel Tapes'. Here we go:

(58) In 1987 The Turbines from Boston released their second LP, 'Magic Fingers And Hourly Rates' on New Rose Records from France. The LP is a real corker with many fabulous tunes on it which the band wrote themselves, but I always keep coming back to their version of The Stooges '1969' (mp3). Enjoy! More on The Turbines: here.

[upon request:

Look Blue Go Purple - 'Cactus Cat'

Jesus And Mary Chain - 'April Skies']

(59) The Bambi Slam were a Canadian-British quartet with an unusual instrumental lineup of guitar, cello, bass, drums, led by singer/guitarist Roy Feldon and featuring cellist Linda Miller and drummer Nick Maynard. By the time of the release of the first full-length album, 'The Bambi Slam', in 1988, the group had splintered, leaving the Bambi Slam as a Feldon solo project. But before that happened, in the year before actually, they released this 12" on Product Inc. Records: 'Don't It Make You Feel' (mp3) ... enjoy!

[upon request:

June Brides - 'Waiting For A Change'

Luddites - 'Doppleganger']

(60) You know, it's always hard for a band to keep up the quality level of a brilliant debut release. The Jesus & Mary Chain might perhaps have been the best example, because I considered 'Psychocandy' as being a milestone and I remember very well that I thought to myself: 'whatever they do after it, it will never be that good'. Well, the proved me totally wrong with this: 'April Skies' (mp3), the 12" version thereof, released on WEA Records in 1987. And, by the way, 11 years later, I had a déjà vu when they came up with the fantastic 'Rocket', which was hidden away on the back of the 'Cracking Up' - CD.

[upon request:

Turbines - 'Straight Dog']

(61) Their third single from 1987, although first recorded (for a Janice Long Session) the year before from Talulah Gosh was 'Talulah Gosh' (mp3), a 12" on 53rd & 3rd Records from Edinburgh. And if there ever was an Anorak band, Talulah Gosh deserved to be described that way. This is by no means meant negatively, I might add. Lead by the mighty Amelia Fletcher (later with Heavenly), this is one of the nicest pop tunes of that area .... at least as far as I'm concerned.

[upon request:

Krupps - 'Your Voice']

(62) Next an anti-fascist anthem (and you can't have enough of those in my view!!) from The Men They Couldn't Hang: 'The Ghosts Of Cable Street' (mp3), which, of course, relates to the 1936 Cable Street Battle. You'll find the track on the back of their 'Goldrush' 12", which was released in 1986 on MCA Records. The band released their first single back in 1984 and as far as I know they're still around in one form or another!

[upon request:

Slab - 'Painting The Fourth Bridge']

(63) Billy Bragg - 'Love Gets Dangerous' (mp3). Okay, listen people: there might be a few amongst you who are not familiar with the entire work of Billy Bragg. If you want to improve upon your little lives, you should try to get hold of a copy of 'Brewing Up With Billy Bragg' as a starter. The record dates 1984 and was issued on Go! Discs at the time. 'Love Gets Dangerous' is on it, yes. Next go and see Billy Bragg play live. You do yourself a favour, people, promised!

(64) 1987 and SST Records from the States brought us 'Sister', the new album from Sonic Youth. Now, I never was quite sure what to think of Sonic Youth, either I thought they were Gods or I thought they were utter crap, depending on which of their records was on the turntable. Interestingly enough there never was anything inbetween. 'Sister' though included quite a lot of tracks which made me move them more towards the God - side, especially 'Kotton Krown' (mp3) did it for me.

[upon request:

Sonic Youth - 'Stereo Sanctity'

Smiths - 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side']

(65) + (66) Alas I don't have any of the songs Peel played on these sides of the tapes. This will happen more often in the future, I'm afraid. Most of the times the reason was that the tracks he played were so obscure that they were impossible to get hold of back then .....

More to come next week, folks ... I hope you enjoyed it and if you did: leave requests! By the way, JC: where's the request-mail you promised to send to me quite some time ago, mate?

Cheerio,

Dirk