A Mixture of Mixes Part 1

Told you I'd be back with a bang. Well, I lied. I'm back with a bunch of compilations. And I didn't actually say I'd be back with an anything, I just waffled about turntables and posted a few metubes. So sue me.

First up is the promised continuation of the Medway saga. And here it is.


Various Artists - Medway Powerhouse Vol. 2 (1987; Hangman Records)

A1: The Milkshakes - Cadalina
A2: The Milkshakes - You Did Her Wrong
A3: The Milkshakes - The Red Monkey
A4: The Prisoners - Joe 90
A5: The Discords - Little Miss Misfit
A6: The Discords - Second to No One (Part 2)
A7: The Delmonas - I've Got Everything Indeed
A8: The Delmonas - Uncle Willy
B1: Auntie Vegetable - Stroll On
B2: The James Taylor Quartet - The Cat
B3: Timmy Tremelo - Johnny Guitar
B4: Thee Mighty Caesars - Your Love
B5: Wild Billy & Big Russ - Bourgheois Blues
B6: The Pop Rivets - Laughing at You
B7: The Pop Rivets - MT Sounds
B8: The Mind Readers - Hurt Me

In the grand style of the previous entry, the track list dwarfs the album cover. There are worse ways to start a post. I would say something along the lines of "and that's how it should be" or something, but not only is that a bit stupid (I mean, how would it work? How would you get all the artists and titles written on it? How would people know what was on it? Madness), but I'm also likely to get the next one wrong and have a massive album cover and make myself look even more of a tit than normal.

If it was not for a later entry into this post, I would possibly be tempted to assert that the Medway Powerhouse compilations were the most insensibly compiled compilations in compilingland. I mean, the music is all almost unrelentingly great (a riot of cheap instruments and priceless tunes), but the ordering of tracks and artists? Mental. Breaks every unwritten rule of compilation making that I carry around in my unhinged loaf. There is at least some reasoning involved this time - the first three are sessions recorded for a regional radio station, and lumping them together makes a sort of sense - but the pattern is nearly all the same. Big hitters side one (Milkshakes, Prisoners, Delmonas), contenders (Auntie Vegetable, Mind Readers, Timmy Tremelo) side two.

The Prisoners entry is of particular note here (having escaped collation on the ubiquitous b-sides and (slightly oxymoronic, given their release) unreleased trackpilation), a fun and faithful rip through the specky crime solving child prodigy's theme tune. The rest of the entries from the usual suspects are of the usual high standard, but lacking the curio value. As is usually the case with these things, the real fun can be found on the flipside. You get the poignant reminder that JTQ used to be really quite good, an unsettling journey into the twisted rock world of unlikely Medway supergroup Auntie Vegetable (oh, the sad and unforgivable lack of an actual Auntie Vegetable album. Why must you mock me so, history?), the brief dip of a toe into the twangy instro groove of Timmy Tremelo (the weakest of his appearances on the compilations, but still mighty fine), a brief snatch (hurr) of the Pop Rivets and The Mind Readers doing another of their proper songs.

Flitting back to The Prisoners, take a break from the reading and whilst you're putting your internet connection to good use by grabbing this thing from the linky in the commenty feast your eyes on this clip of The Prisoners belting out Melanie on French TV. The sound quality isn't the best, but it's worth watching just for the French presenter, sitting in a car-thing, in a television studio, introducing "...mey-lahr-nee!". And also from the amused and puzzled looks on the chaps faces.




Part two to follow very shortly indeed.