Live!

So I was undecided about posting the live albums last time. So now I'm decided. I'm funny like that (although being asked helps - I'm always open to requests within the scope of this meandering mess. Cheers, chief!).


The Milkshakes vs. The Prisoners (Media Burn; 1985)

A1: The Milkshakes - Shimmy, Shimmy
A2: The Milkshakes - Pretty Baby
A3: The Milkshakes - Did I Tell You
A4: The Milkshakes - Club MIC
A5: The Milkshakes - Black Sails
A6: The Milkshakes - Bo-us Diddley-us
A7: The Milkshakes - Remarkable
A8: The Milkshakes - Brand New Cadillac
A9: The Milkshakes - Hound Dog
B1: The Prisoners - Melanie
B2: The Prisoners - Reaching My Head
B3: The Prisoners - Hurricane
B4: The Prisoners - American Jingle
B5: The Prisoners - 96 Tears
B6: The Prisoners - A Taste of Pink
B7: The Prisoners - Love Me Lies

A quality live album from start to finish. Just a plain old quality album really, never mind the live bit. With the exception of the first couple of singles, it's probably my favourite slice of The Milkshakes. Energetic, full of vim, vigour, fun and tunes - it really is the sound of band right at the top of their game, a game that everyone wants to join in with. Bruce in particular does himself proud on this.

Swap "The Prisoners" for "The Milkshakes" in that paragraph, and you have a fair comment on the second side, too. Although you'd have to take out the Bruce Brand bit, obviously. Storming out of the blocks with the very best available version of "Melanie", there is barely a chance to draw breath until the arrival of "American Jingle" (which the eagle-eared amongst you will recognise and the tune that ended up as the little jingly bit between "Whenever I'm Gone" and "Who's Sorry Now" on The Last Fourfathers). Driven, powerful, impassioned, the chaps turn out a fearsomely tuneful garage racket that temporarily renders all other forms of music quite redundant. The onslaught eases slightly through the second part ("A Taste of Pink" is welcome, but I've never really been a fan of 96 Tears in any of its incarnations) before we close with another of Graham's peerless pipe workouts, a wholehearted and thrusting take on "Love Me Lies". Quality.


The Last Night at The Mic (Empire; 1985)

A1: The Prisoners - Coming Home
A2: The Prisoners - Revenge of the Cybermen
A3: The Prisoners - There's a Time
A4: The Prisoners - Runaway
A5: The Prisoners - Little Shadows
A6: The Prisoners - Sitting on My Sofa
A7: The Prisoners - Don't Call My Name
B1: The Milkshakes - Brand New Cadillac
B2: The Milkshakes - Nothing You Can Say or Do
B3: The Milkshakes - Soldiers of Love
B4: The Milkshakes - Jezebel
B5: The Milkshakes - Comanche
B6: The Milkshakes - You Did Her Wrong
B7: The Milkshakes - It's You
B8: The Milkshakes - Please Don't Tell My Baby
B9: The Milkshakes - Farewell to the Mic

Sound quality is a bit of a dip from t'other split live album, but still passable. The main attraction with this one is the slightly less "obvious" tracklist, in particular the triumvirate of "new" songs ("new" because one is a cover, and the other two would probably have ended up on record sooner or later, had fate not intervened. Stupid fate). "Runaway" is an alright way to spend two minutes - the fellas do their best with it, but there's only so much you can do with it, really. "Little Shadows" foreshadows The Prime Movers whilst still feeling entirely Prisoners, whilst "Sitting on My Sofa" probably leans more JTQ-ward. The Milkshakes, meanwhile, do their Milkshakes thing, possibly lacking a little of the freshness of the previous album and suffering a little more than The Prisoners from the dip in sound quality (whilst crystal clear production is so far down the list for both groups that it isn't even on the list (it's probably on the anti-list), you still need a certain level of aural clarity). It's all good though, just not as all good as the other album, really.

Two Weeks Too Long

An entire fortnight. I know, I know - it's not good enough. To be fair, there's been a lot of stuff going on, but hey - you haven't come to a blog like this to hear me witter and moan. I'll try not to leave it so long in future, I promise.

Anyway, to help ease the undoubted pain of two weeks without the trash, here's the rest of the Prisoners stuff for you to feast your ears on and then track down and buy from whichever grubby corner of the earth you can find it in (naturally I've left out the albums proper - you can quite merrily get these from your local CD vending emporium, something I heartily endorse and yea, even encourage. Of course you'd prefer to hear them in wonderful vinylphonic crackly sound, so you'll still end up on ebay, frantically clicking. I'm undecided about the split live LPs. I'll get back to you on that one).


The Prisoners - There's a Time (Munster Records; 1999)

A1: There's a Time
A2: Revenge of the Cybermen
B1: I'm Looking For You
B2: 96 Tears


I guess the date there could/should say 1983 - after all, that's when the songs first emerged. However, this is a bit of an oddity - a late reissue of the early single (the A side) coupled with previously unreleased songs from the same sessions. The reissue is of Spanish origin, the original was French (on Skydog records). Confused? I know I am! Well, a bit. Actually, not at all. Did sound good, though. Like, whatever. Regardless, it's a four song set that anyone would be proud to call their own. And now you can, too.


The Prisoners - Shine on Me (Deceptive; 1997)

1: Shine on Me
2: Judgement Song
3: Small


Not a reissue, but something of an oddity all the same. A singular child born of a brief reunion. A shame more wasn't made of it, as the three songs ("Judgement Song" in particular - despite it's late appearance, it's firmly one of my favourite Prisoners songs) make you feel like they'd never been away. Still, if Graham had been one for forever looking backwards, then we wouldn't have had the magnificent Solarflares albums (still to come, I will get round to them though) and the Prime Movers, amongst other things (one of those other things being the frankly sexually good Graham Day and the Gaolers album, which I trust you have all eagerly snapped up with indecent haste. I might put the "Get Off My Track" single up at some point now that it's no longer in print, but I really must insist that you go buy the album).


The Prisoners - Rare & Unissued (Hangman; 1988)

A1: Coming Home (live)
A2: Revenge of the Cybermen
A3: He's in Love (radio session)
A4: Trophies (demo)
A5: Far Away (radio session)
A6: Ain't No Tellin' (demo)
A7: Come to the Mushroom (live)

B1: Happyness for Once (demo)
B2: Be On Your Way (demo)
B3: Buccaneer (demo)
B4: Deceiving Eye (live)
B5: Mourn My Health (demo)
B7: Pop Star Party (demo)
B8: Mourn My Health (demo 2)


I often find that rare and unissued compilations serve only to reinforce a single point - that things remain rare and unissued for a bloody good reason. This, however, flies forcefully in the furry face of this opinion. The Prisoners simply accumulated a bunch of rare and unissued stuff because they were too busy striding from one musical masterpiece to another to sit down and collect the goodies that had happened to fall by the wayside along their path. You have live tracks demonstrating the full force of their on stage goodness, radio session tracks that sound as good as any studio effort (testament to the wonderfully live feeling captured on their very best records), unreleased demos that many another band would kill to have as an a-side, and demos to some of their better known efforts that leave you unable to decide which you actually prefer. Some of these are incorporated on the CD re-releases (with additional demos and the like), but I guess I just prefer them collected here together where they belong. Whether this is because I'm right and this is how it should be or because I'm an old curmudgeon who has been listening to it like this for twenty years, I've really no idea.

Answers on a postcard, please.

Hidden Charms

A brief(ish) blast of the undisputed (quiet at the back, William) kings of Medway. They don't need me recounting their troubled history here (it's been done elsewhere, most notably here, albeit with rather idiosyncratic spelling and without an update in several years, thus missing out on the full joys of the Solarflares, Graham on bass for The Buffs and most recently Graham Day and the Gaolers), so we'll get straight on with the records.

The Prisoners - Electric Fit (Big Beat; 1984)

A1: Melanie
A2: What I Want
A3: Go Go (uncredited)
B1: The Last Thing on Your Mind
B2: Revenge of the Cybermen

"London is exciting, yes? ... yes!
The Prisoner's music is exciting, yes? ... definitely yes!!
Put the two together and what do you get?
Just this ... a blast!
Sizzling with musical vibration - itching to record.
The Result. The EP "Electric Fit"
Raw, vibrant and energetic, characterised by explosive guitar work and ear shattering organ lines, the boys tell me it is their favourite selection of songs to date. Getting back into that rocking, squirming groove, they pull out most of the stops and just let things happen. This is the kind of stuff you can dance to or eat to or just stand there and BE to.
Impeccably produced by Russ Wilkins for your pleasure".

Not my words, the words of Peter Niss (no, really), July '84, on the sleeve notes.

Ah, the classic Prisoners EP. All readily available on CDs (Thewisermiserdemelza +7, for instance), which I exhort you to go and buy - several times if possible. However, here they are from the vinyl, pops, clicks and crackles and all, just the way god intended. Stormers one and all, but special mention must go to "The Last Thing on Your Mind" - probably because it is just about my favourite Prisoners song. It's like the song that "Tin Soldier" era Small Faces never realised that they didn't have the ability to make. Not that it sounds anything like the Small Faces, mind. Graham's never sounded more splendid, wistful, impassioned, yearning, cynical and angry - and he's sounded all those pretty darn well all the way through his career. Made for each other fate told me but failed mention - to you. That's a lyric, by the way, not a curious textual bid for Graham's manlove. Also, the song showcases Graham's wonderfully unabashed embracing of the "ba ba ba baaa baaaa" (no, not sheep and no, not Jim'll Fix It) - witness also the unutterably grand "Thinking of You (Broken Pieces)" from The Last Fourfathers.

If you don't like this, then you don't deserve ears.



The Prisoners - Revenge of the Prisoners (Pink Dust; 1984)

A1: What I Want
A2: Melanie
A3: Love Changes
A4: Coming Home
A5: Reaching My Head
A6: The Last Thing on Your Mind
A7: Revenge of the Cybermen Part Two
B1: Here Come the Misunderstood
B2: A Dream is Gone
B3: Hurricane
B4: Tonight
B5: Love Me Lies
B6: Far Away



The elusive dip of the Prisoners' collective toes into the American market. How it fared there, I have no idea, but I do know that it is one HELL of an album. You get the four songs off the "Electric Fit" EP (again. Yes, I'm spoiling you more than the ambassador that built his fucking hotel out of Ferrero Rocher), a re-recording of the classic Coming Home (it's been working out and sounds beefier than when first aired - Russ Wilkins >>> Philip Chevron), "Reaching My Head" from their appearance on The Tube (released previously as part of the Four on 4 EP, with The Milkshakes, Tall Boys and Stingrays being the other three) and the choice selections from Thewisermiserdemelza. Clearly, you'll be wanting to go and buy the actual CD with some of these on (I very much insist on it), but you'll also be needing this for the unavailable songs and the glorious sound of freshly recorded crackly vinyl. You also get "Love Changes", which I haven't found anywhere else, and believe me - you WANT that. You may just not have realised it yet. You will soon.

This was the day that engulfed the world in TERROR!

Sod's law that it'd be a Monday, really. Wrought by none other than The Deadly Mantis, would you believe. Yes, that's right. The entire globe was entirely engulfed entirely in terror entirely by a single massive insect. Just the one. On it's jack. I haven't been this scared by something since the whole "terrifying nighttime shrubbery" of Blair Witch Project. Which, let's face it, was about as scary as, well, a privet in the dark. Yes, I watch a lot of rubbish films. It's something of a hobby of mine. If you're lucky, I might tell you about it one day. Remind me to mention "Population 436".

But back to the issue in hand, which is not giant menacing green insects, but rather the deepest recesses of my musical brain. Now there is somewhere you wouldn't want to be alone on a dark night.

Ring Norris McWhirter (note: you can't actually do this, he's dead)! Page Roy Castle (note: you can't do this either, he's also dead)! Text Kris Akabusi (sadly, this would be possible)! Nothing less than a record-breaking FOUR tiny masterpieces on show tonight! AWOOGA!

Ahem. We have an escalope of the billy, an entrecote of the trash, a medallion of the garage and a massive gumbo pot full of the Medway goodness. I think I need to invest in a Thesaurus. I hear they make good pets, even if they are extinct.



The Bad Dooleys - Shark Attack (1987; Kix 4 U)

1: 900 Miles; 2: Shark Attack; 3: Pyro Go
4: Circular Course; 5: The Crazy Night
6: Darkness; 7: The Black Phantom
8: Stomped Dance


THE Bad Dooleys album. Or mini album, at least. They went really rather rubbish after this midget classic (well, there might have been a little goodness sandwiched between the two, but this really was career peak), lurching from primetime continental psycho to sub-Stray Cats neo-rockabilly with all the crushing disappointment of opening a Kinder Egg only to find you've got a stupid pre-painted Terrapin instead of a funky toy. Or worse, a stupid tiny jigsaw. They even had the temerity to go and tarnish their own stupendous cover of "900 Miles", the blockbusting album opener, on the diluted and overpolished jaunt into Polecat territory.

But enough with the gripin', I hear you say (with my special internet-enabled ears. I loves me my Innovations catalogue). And quite right you are. The wrigglin', writhin, stompin', powerslammin' fun barely let's up for a second on this all-too-brief breathless straightahead steam through the upper echelons of eighties psycho. From the aforementioned opener (rhythms gouging you a third ear, a great big dirty guitar troubling your innards and drums beating your head flatter'n Mrs. Meatloaf after a lusty night o' love), you know you're onto a winner. And also nearing the end of a paragraph clearly sponsored by The World Apostrophe Appreciatin' Society. The eponymous second track briefly dips, lending weight to the already fierce desire to lift that stylus up and plonk it back down again right back at the start of the side. Something you want to do over and over. But stick with it, it's hardly a bad track (there's barely one on the whole album), and besides - if everything was an instant classic, how would you tell things apart?

"Pyro Go" gets you right back on the mainline to mental quiff central. It stomps, growls and chews its way into the centre of your brain, filled with wonderfull German phrasing and lyrics you can make neither head nor tail of. And you love it. Speaking of the enhancing power of the foreign phrasing, you're dumped straight into the next grunting moment of wonder.

MAY DADDEY WARS A WAREWULF! MY MUTHER WARS A YUNG GEHRL! SHE WARS EWNLY SIXTEHN YARS EWLD! THAR STOORY OOV LAIFE UND DERTH!

The last bit might be a bit wrong. Twenty years of being one my favourite songs on one of my favourite albums have shed no more light on just what the hell "Circular Course" is the stoory oov. It doesn't matter, no not a jot. Well, it does, but only because it makes it all so much darn better. Germans do psycho well. Mad Sin also had it goin' on for a bit (they sadly switched it off, decommissioned it, mothballed it and put it in the bin, trusting rather in their ability to sound like an average rocky metal band with inappropriate instruments). But let us return to the time when the mighty Teutons bestrode the world like scary big musician people. Let us cherish that which they left us, including Shark Attack (replete with baffling album artwork). Danke!



The Escalators - Moving Staircases (Big Beat; 1983)

1: The Day the Sun Burned Down
2: Sloane Rangers; 3: Video Club
4: Flanders Field; 5: Young Men
6: Cut Up; 7: Eskimo Rock
8: Slumberland (Vicky's Song)
9: Dog Eats Robot; 10: The Camden Crawl
11: Survivalists; 12: Starstruck
13: Monday

Ah, the fabled Escalators. The now-legendary Nigel Lewis' inbetweenie band. Rising from the ashe - hang on, I've already done that once. No, this was Nigel's "proper" band. Not entirely trash free, they don't really dine at the same table as the rest of the eighties trash set (including their own later incarnation, the Tall Boys). It's a fine album, don't get me wrong, but it seems remarkbly unsure of itself, sharing rather more with "regular" indie of the time and Nigel's rather excellent weirdo solo albumo of much later than with the bleak b-movie trash that Nigel did so well. A stab at stardom, perhaps, an attempt to do "grown-up" music. And thus perpetually slightly diminished as a result.

There are good ol' garage moments - the opening "The Day The Sun Burned Down" and "Cut Up" could quite happily be Tall Boys songs. But too often Nigel relinquishes vocals (I've asked this before - why? You've got someone who can make shouting "HAAAALP" like a scared lobotomised docker sound sexy, why let anyone else sing?), and "Sloane Rangers" and "Slumberland", whilst certainly pleasing, could have been just about anyone hanging around the NME charts at the time.

On balance, the "Dog Eats Robot" moments of deadpan Nigel drone win out over the "Slumberland" ubiquities, but not enough to lift this to the heights attained by Wednesday Addam's Boyfriend by the Tall Boys. Which is why I will always prefer the Tall Boys. I might even be in a minority. Perhaps the erstwhile rarity of Moving Staircases, and the brevity of the Escalators incarnation has invested them with a not quite warranted exotic lustre. I still love it, but not quite as much as I really want to. Must be a bit like having a ginger child.



The Volcanoes - Strangers in the Night b/w Murder USA (MCA; 1983)

A1: Strangers in the Night
A2: Murder U.S.A.


Sweet toasty moses, now you're talking. Oh why weren't The Volcanoes massively famous? Rammed full of tunes (not all of them their own, clearly), chockful of a cool garage vibe, overflowing with genuine psych promise, and infused with the joy of the billy, both psycho and rocka.

You don't get all of that on this little snippet, just most of it. The rest of it can be found on their excellent LP and appearances on compilations. Here, you get an utterly faithful, melodramatic cover of ol' mafia eyes, tuned down to sinister, chugging along to a trusty garage groove. Some top notch "do-do-do-ing", too. "Murder U.S.A." takes no prisoners, a high speed rip through enough high-quality tunefulness to have topped the charts in twelve countries, bopping hard enough to have won a nobel prize for fearsome bopping. Except the latter prize didn't exist, and the former event mysteriously didn't happen. Lord knows why. I blame the generally cementheaded record buying public. Honestly, if you don't take anything else from here, take this. You won't regret it. You couldn't regret it. Regret would be a ridiculous impossibility. You'd probably end up coming round my house and thanking me. I'd put the kettle on, break out the garibaldis (or possibly fig rolls), and we'd get on like a house on fire. Then I'd have you arrested for being a weirdo internet stalker. But regardless, GET IT. You know where it is. I'll return to the Volcanoes when I get round to the album. Did I mention you should get it? Whet your appetite. You'll be gagging for the album in no time flat.



Various Artists - Medway Powerhouse Vol. 1 (Hangman; 1987)

1: Thee Mighty Caesars - I Self Destroy
2: Thee Mighty Caesars - Black Elk Speaks
3: The Del-Monas - I Feel Like Giving In
4: The Prisoners - Happyness for Once
5: The Discords - Second to No One
6: The Milkshakes - Ida Honey
7: The Milkshakes - The One Eyed Git
8: Auntie Vegetable - The Train Kept a-Rollin'
9: Auntie Vegetable - Fire
10: James Taylor Quartet - Be My Girl
11: The Daggermen - Ivor
12: Pop Rivets - Kray Twins
13: Pop Rivets - To Start, To Hesitate, To Stop
14: The Gruffmen - Hard Lovin' Men


Okay, so the tracklisting dwarfs the album cover. Sorry about that. All the more reason for you to do some vinyl detectorating and part with some cash in the worthwhile pursuit of the joys etched into its mesmering grooves, innit? The most ronseal of albums. It's a powerhouse, and it's of Medway. They're all here - some of them more than once (definitely cheating there, Mr. Childish). You got the punky garage clatter of thee Caesars, the rockin' and rollin' and twangin' shambles of the 'Shakes (as nobody calls them), you've got the firstest and bestests ladies of the Medway (I'd choose the 'Monas over the 'Coatees (as nobody call either of them) any time you put a gun to my head and made me) - singing in French no less! - you got the no nonense guitar attack of The Discords, you've got the utterly peerless Prisoners misspelling their way to the nonsensical garage-psychey-pop witterings about fish in hair and sweetcorn in beards that the Small Faces could only dream of achieving. You've got everything indeed. Including the masterpiece that is "Ivor", by the lost and lamented and very much missed Daggermen. Find the whole of "A Quick One..." by the Who a bit of a mouthful? Too much to digest in one sitting? Then why not just take the closing segment and turn it into a clattering beast of a perfectly formed and preserved pop masterpiece? Why not, indeed? The Daggermen did, and for that the world is forever in their debt. Billy paid tribute to the Daggermen, covering this in the process as part of the Buffs. He couldn't get anywhere near. Only on Krave On! by the Kravin' "A"'s (uncoincidentally featuring a Daggerman) was such sheer, riotously joyous pop nous recaptured. Well, that and a load of other songs I love. But that's the closest and most pertinent example, believe you me.

If all that doesn't get the juices flowin', then you're probably already dead.