Norwich City 1- Leicester City 2

Damn I miss Andy’s Records bargain bin. Even Woolie’s ‘reduced to clear’ provided me with a few beauties. Everyone loves a risk purchase under 2 quid right? Sadly no more, but the Break Charity Shop at the end of my road does a pretty good job to fulfil this need… Look what I picked up over the past half term week (ish). Maybe a heap of plastic shit or maybe inroads into lost musical gems? Well, with the wife away, minus a (disappointing) trip out this afternoon to Carrow Road, this extended weekend has been all about giving these bad boys a chuffing good listen… (Please excuse the Partridge football puns).

The only thing I knew about KINGMAKER (oh yeah, fucking KINGMAKER!) was that they are in that Kula Shaker/Menswear/Sleeper/JJ72 class of shame... *Gulp*. However I still like JJ72, and this, their first album turns out to be a pretty fine shoegaze effort putting me in the mind of early Boo Radley’s and Ride.  Bingo! Not sure I’d venture much further than the debut, but definitely a fine piece of plastic for a quid and I know of at least one other Owl who would dig it too. A solid start…

…When I picked up the brilliantly named HOLLY AND THE ITALIANS LP and looked at the sleeve I could only think about when Alan Partridge described the painting above the mantelpiece of his mental stalkers house;

 ’’I don’t know why I bought this vinyl. It’s got a very haunting quality… woman and machine. I mean, I often look at this in the morning and think, “Ooh, I’d like to kiss her!”... 

I don’t want to kiss Holly, but I wouldn’t mind going to her disco, because as it turns out the album is full of short, sharp new-wave pop nuggets. I guess a bit like Blondie and that Siouxsie one, but that would be a lazy comparison. Anyhow it all seems good fun to me and again, in the words of AP; ‘’Lovely stuff!’’ And “game on!”

…This one is sort of cheating as I actually got the TEARDROPS EXPLODE album a while ago from BREAK but never had a chance to really listen to it properly. Been listening to bits and bobs of them and Cope over the years but not a full TE album but as expected, it sounds great. I will try get hold of some more stuff as this will no doubt be on the turntable for a while I think...

Which leads us to VITAMIN Z. Christ. Here goes… On seeing this LP I curiously mobile phone ‘Wiki’d’ them to discover they were; ‘pioneers of synth-pop/new wave’. Sounds great? For a quid? COME ON! But sadly they aren’t. And it’s crap. Best thing I can offer is that apparently the singer is now the Arctic Monkeys manager… Ouch…

…FURYO are apparently (Wikipedia again) the remnants of Luton punk band ‘UK Decay’. (Never heard of them. No one has. Not even them). The cover looks like a Spanish themed Joy-Division album might do (which is why I bought it), but sounds like some pervert goths pissing about on a classical guitar for a bit until the half decent new wave guitars kick in… Better than Vitamin Z, but still not as good as a kick in the balls. All of a sudden this isn’t going so well…

…But in off the cross bar come SCARS with the genuinely brilliant AUTHOR! AUTHOR! Forty minutes of perfect post-punk indie.  All your usual 80s comparisons are here- (The Fall, Gang of Four, even a bit Smiths like?), but its his distinctive angry Scottish accent also reminds me of why I loved the first Glasvegas album so much...This one pound purchase is EXACTLY why I love buying records and why the process of solely accessing music via the internet is shit … The artwork and booklet are cracking too. And they are called SCARS… And a bit of research shows that this is quite a sought after item too… FUCK YOU VITAMIN Z! and its all level!

...Picked up BLANCMANGE’s first album at BREAK a few weeks ago… Turns out it sounds like if Ian Curtis was in Cabaret Voltaire. Imagine that? I have many times. And weirdly enough I have since noticed that they have reformed and are playing in Norwich in April… Listen up Owls, surely a future gig because this is great… And the sleeve is smashing too. On the ball city!

And finally the Fall. Been after this one for ages and couldn’t believe my short-sighted eyes when it was sat staring at me for £1.50… No shit, this is the best Fall album I’ve ever heard. (But I must confess I ‘ve only heard about 30% of them). Anyhow its sensational and funny and loud and fast and angry and complete(?) and should be a staple of any Owls diet. Can’t believe anyone would take this to a charity shop… Did someone die? Was it MES’s himself…

So the moral of this (now pissed up) story is buy more records, go to Charity Shops (or ideally RECORD SHOPS) instead of i-tunes, listen to the first Kingmaker/Blancmange records and go find out about SCARS. And Norwich are out of the FA Cup… BOO!


Sammy @sickbookies