Equus: Randy & the Rainbows - Why Do Kids Grow Up? (30 January 1993)

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In 1963, doo-wop group, Randy and the Rainbows, enjoyed a Number 10 hit on the US Billboard Singles Chart with Denise. It failed to chart in the UK, though 15 years later, Blondie flipped the genders and scored a Number 2 hit on the UK Singles Chart with Denis, which in a neat reversal failed to chart in the US.

Having enjoyed a hit just at the point when doo-wop was beginning to shift from commercial hot-property to a nostalgia fad, Randy and the Rainbows were faced with tricky decisions over what to do with the follow-up single. In the event, they took the most sensible course of action and reused the Denise melody with fresh lyrics. The result was Why Do Kids Grow Up? Unfortunately, the record buyers of America weren’t interested in buying the same record twice and it stalled at Number 97.  The tune is reused, though the lyrics explore one of the obsessions of late 1950s/early 1960s US pop - what could best be described as Wow! That Little Girl I Remember Is All Grown Up Now and How! - in a slightly more philosophical vein than other examples like Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen did.  Here, the rite of childhood is seen as a preparation for falling in love with all the attendant thrills and upheavals that that brings.  In the wrong hands, this could end up sounding like a Giles Coren article set to music, but in the event it manages to be a successful riff on the notion of  childhood relationships, puberty and as a doo-wop version of Circle of Life, 30 years in advance.

Video courtesy of ELTOHOF.

Equus: Skullflower - Black Rabbit (30 January 1993)

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The first time I saw this CD, my rheumy old eyes told me it was called Third Goalkeeper. In fact, it’s not called that at all, it’s called Third Gatekeeper.  (John Peel on the album which Black Rabbit came from.)

What Peel didn’t mention is that Skullflower spelt “Third” as “IIIrd”, an act of pretension which should have seen the album cast into the bin. Having listened to the album in full, while prepping this post, I have to say that had Peel played any track other than Black Rabbit - other than perhaps, Saturnalia - from it, then I would have passed. Unlike many of the tracks on the album, which dicker around inconclusively, but at great volume, Black Rabbit does have some momentum about it, which makes it a slightly compelling listen.  It’s characterised as noise rock, though I found myself recalling it sounding a little like what I remembered as “satanic” or Occult Rock.   During its best moments, Black Rabbit has that feel of demonism and sulphur in the air, whereas most of the rest of IIIrd Gatekeeper swaps sulphur for ear-splitting farts instead.  It was also a reminder that while he may not have been curing cancer or splitting the atom, Peel was worth the money he was paid, having to listen to albums like IIIrd Gatekeeper. I’ve ended up having to do it for love.

Video courtesy of Antro Nero.

Equus: System 7 - 7:7 Expansion [Nutritious Mix] (30 January 1993)

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Two posts ago, I wrote about an 80s post-punker who briefly got bitten by the possibilities of dance music. Now, it’s time to enjoy the work of a pair of 70s prog-rockers who have enjoyed an ongoing 30 year love affair with the genre.  Former Gong members, Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy had already experimented with making ambient music long before they set up System 7.  Music from Hillage's 1979 album, Rainbow Dome Musick had been played by Alex Paterson of The Orb in DJ sets during the late 80s and this appears to have opened the idea for Hillage and Giraudy to form System 7 in 1989.

Had 7:7 Expansion sounded anything like the music on Rainbow Dome Musick, I would have passed on it, but this is a 100% stone-cold classic banger. Unlike some of the other mixes of this track, the Nutritious Mix dials down the Aboriginal Outback feel in place of a slightly more cosmic, spacey vibe albeit one garnished with synths/guitar sounds that mix gristle with liquidity. But it’s the build to total dancefloor euphoria at 6:02 that makes the track.  It was enough to sneak 7:7 Expansion into the UK Top 40 Singles Chart.

Alongside this, Peel played a track from Hillage’s 1977 LP, Motivation Radio called Saucer Surfing, which I would have probably included here had it not featured those awful, processed, metallic voice effects of the late 70s, which were used to denote intergalactic speech, and which go through me like nails down a blackboard.

Video courtesy of Confusion in Motion.

Equus: Shorty - Samtastic (30 January 1993)

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Attempts to syndicate radio programmes in USA, initial enthusiasm of Yank entrepreneurs evaporates when they actually get to hear programmes. Present attempt which has at least got as far as programmes being circulated under sponsorship of Nana company.  Absurdly over-optimistic forecasts of  American publicity machine and general opportunity to snigger.  - John Peel in a letter to literary agent, Cat Ledger, circa 1992 in which he set out the structure of a proposed autobiography. (Republished in Margrave of the Marshes p.482, Corgi, London, 2005.)

1993 offered Peel the chance for his first broadcasts on American radio since he returned to the United Kingdom in 1967.  Under the frankly dreadful title, Peel Out in the States, he compiled 24 half-hour programmes which were distributed to 200 college and commercial radio stations throughout America. The playlists for the shows were mainly made up of British, European and African artists. American artists were restricted to one track per programme in a feature which Peel called the Yank Sizzler. Typically, the choices in the first and third programme were not Nirvana/Pearl Jam wannabes, but rather the hardcore stylings of Chicago band, Shorty.

For me, Samtastic is a borderline inclusion here, but the mix of hardcore vocals, catwail guitar riffs and jazz-funk basslines stays the right side of tolerable, and occasionally veers into the enjoyable. Peel loved it though, describing it as something in the nature of a treat.

Meanwhile, prospective advertisers/sponsors who could have got behind Peel Out in the States and given it nationwide reach, smiled politely, checked their watches and left.  It would take the arrival of the Internet and Radio 1’s early efforts at the Sounds/iPlayer model for Americans to be able hear Peel without the permission of sponsors.

Video courtesy of HydrogenMist

Equus: Influx - Deeva (30 January 1993)

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You’re in your early thirties. You’ve spent the previous 16 years playing in bands that have embraced first wave punk rock (The Epileptics), anarcho-punk/dub (Flux of Pink Indians) and hip hop/electronica (Hotalacio). Now you put out a solo dance record called Deeva, which 30 years from now, a blogger will compare alongside other examples of the form such as Virtual Reality is Here by The Infinity Project. But in 1993, you’re at a crossroads. Do you continue down the dance music path, using the Influx name? Plenty of people still remember Flux of Pink Indians and your former bassist now manages Bjork’s record label.  What’s more, Deeva is a masterpiece, both in 2023 and in 1993, driven along by subtle basslines, euphoric synths, Bollywood inflected opera vocals and an Ennio Morricone brass sample, it should have been in every club and radio DJs’ record box/setlist. And who knows what may have come next.

However, Colin Latter, the musician in question, decided that Deeva would be his parting gift to the music scene. Deciding that the music business was a young person’s game, he changed careers and became a furniture maker. If his furniture’s anywhere near as good as his dance music skills, I’d give him a commission.

Video courtesy of bonbonfabrik

Equus: John Peel Show - BBC Radio 1 (Friday 29 January 1993)

As this edition of Kat’s Karavan tipped over from Friday night to the morning of Saturday 30 January 1993, John Peel took the opportunity to wish his in-laws, Dennis and Eileen Gilhooly a happy 50th wedding anniversary. I have been very lucky in knowing and loving them as I have been in marrying their daughter.  My notes for the show don’t reveal whether he dedicated any of the records he played on this edition of the show to Dennis and Eileen. Certainly it wasn’t any of the, quite large, number of tracks that I had initially included but went cold on - more on them, shortly.  It may have been that he sought to take Dennis and Eileen back to their courting days of the early 1940s by playing something by Spaelimenninir I Hoydolum, whose eponymous 1977 album of waltzes and polkas had been a staple of his playlists ever since then.  

Maybe he chose to celebrate the Golden Wedding anniversary by dedicating the Number 44 track in the Phantom Fifty to them.  I think that some of the sentiments of Gorgeous Blue Flower in my Garden by Th’ Faith Healers would have appealed to lifelong lovers.  Given the tortured journey Peel had gone through to get the 1991 Festive Fifty played on the radio, I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when Peel discovered that he’d been mis-numbering the entries and originally had Gorgeous Blue Flower in my Garden up at 42 in the list. 

Peel also gave a shoutout to John C Donelkevic, who was currently visiting the UK from Connecticut. He had passed onto Peel a copy of Boot by Freak Baby.  Peel played the b-side of the record, which was called Peel, strangely enough, specifically so Donelkevic could hear his copy of the record played on the radio.

The selections from this episode were taken from a full 3 hour show. It feels like I’ve been working through 29/1/93 forever and it would have taken a lot longer had there not been 5 tracks which fell from favour when I listened back to them:

Steakdaddy Six - Rubber Pants: Released via the Twelve Inch Records label from Urbana Illinois. Peel paired it with another Twelve Inch release by Dis called Ed Was Solace, which was on my list but not shareable.

Eddie Fowlkes - I Wanna Know [Bandulu mix] - Should have been a no-brainer given that I liked what I’d heard of Bandulu, but it didn’t stand up at the time - listening to it again as I type this I think I may have been wrong to discount it. Peel was agonising over the correct pronunciation for Fowlkes’s surname. “Folks?” “Foulks?”  The Infonet label had sent him a note on this, but he’d lost it. Perhaps it was this uncertainty which caused him to play the record at the wrong speed at the start. In the end, he plumped for “Foulks”.

 Little Walter - Sad Hours: One of the world’s first amplified harmonica players, apparently. A fact which gives me an excuse to post my favourite amplified harmonica track, Goddamn by Son of Dave.

The Jesus Lizard - Puss/Gladiator [Peel Session]: Early 1993 was turning into a busy period for The Jesus Lizard. Puss was due to go out as one half of a split single with Nirvana.  Drummer Mac McNeilly was about to become a father. Bassist David Wm. Sims was about to set up a record label called Torsion Music and to Peel’s great delight, they looked set to sign the Northern Irish band, In Dust, though this did not subsequently happen.

Pepe Kalle and Rochereau - Forgive Me: A soukous miss. Despite featuring Popolipo on guitar, this is pretty forgettable stuff until it reaches the playout. When I first heard it, I thought the playout, from 2:43, was stratospherically impressive. Peel himself described it as sounding like he’s about to take off for somewhere really spectacular.  But on second listen, it didn’t really hit the heights which the radio waves suggested it did.

There was one track, I would have liked to include but couldn’t:

Tse Tse Fly - Bus Window: You can access that track on YouTube, but every time I went to play it, the video stalled and I’m talking about every time over several days. So, you know…ya snooze, ya lose.  The band came from Leeds and the track was on a 10-inch album called Duckweed Smuggled Home. The sound was more late-70s New Wave than reflective of the early 90s music sound.

Happy anniversary Mr. and Mrs. Gilhooly

Equus: Huggy Bear - Into The Mission (29 January 1993)

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When this blog last covered content by Huggy Bear, I spent a lot of time writing about the political significance of Riot grrrl and how, by the mid 1990s, the music industry had managed to repackage the aims and theories behind the movement into phenomena like The Spice Girls, which while not lacking a degree of subversive intent, was carefully cultivated for mass-market consumption.  What I had forgotten about, having only been dimly aware of it at the time, was just how frightening Riot grrrl seemed to people at the time.  Not in a generationally threatening sense, the way early rock ‘n’ roll or mid 1970s punk rock was seen to be - no Riot grrrl affiliated act ever made the front pages of a national newspaper or provoked cries of moral panic - but the refusal to compromise or conform to industry expectations always meant that mainstream support from the music industry/press often seemed to be lukewarm at best.  I suspect out of fear that these male-dominated industries could find themselves over-run with opinionated women who might just have dragged the lead figures off on the tumbrils to a rock ‘n’ roll guillotine, there to lop off…not just their heads.  As subsequent posts will show, John Peel was providing support and approval to many of these revolutionaries at the time.

Such an atmosphere of queasy threat and mistrust  can be heard all over the opening movements of Into the Mission. Sometimes, I like to cast certain songs as rock ‘n’ roll crystallisations of certain films. The works of Abel Ferrara are my particular go-to on this. Into the Mission feels like the work of a band who had spent a lot of time watching Ferrara’s 1981 rape-revenge psychodrama, Ms.45, also known as Angel of Vengeance. In it, Thana, a mute seamstress working in the garment district of New York City, is raped twice in one day. Once in an alleyway on her way home from work, and the second time when she gets home and finds her house being robbed. She manages to fight off and kill the home invader and takes his 45 caliber pistol out onto the streets where she conducts a night-time vigilante campaign of shooting various pimps and ne’er do-wells who are threatening women.  So far-so Death Wish, but the movie raises the stakes by showing that the combination of the rapes that she suffered and the sense of liberation she feels in murdering street thugs have warped her mind to the extent that, in time, she sees ALL men as worthy of being murdered.  Soon, she’s stalking and trying to kill men who have done nothing more than have an argument with their partners.  The movie climaxes with her attending a fancy dress party with her work colleagues where she murders her own lecherous boss and then attempts to shoot as many men as possible. The lead up to the scene, where she is shown in her apartment, heavily made up but dressed as a nun and kissing the bullets she loads into the gun is one of the most memorable in exploitation cinema history. 

It’s this scene I have in mind, when I hear Jo Johnson’s semi-seductive/semi-threatening reveal that Baby’s on a mission/Baby’s not alone/Baby’s not in a trance/Baby’s coming home.   Whereas the sublime Her Jazz was a call to action, Into the Mission is the sound of that action taking place. The line, Baby’s not alone conjures the image of hundreds of women bursting forth and wasting the patriarchy.  The thrashy abandon with which the band deliver the chorus sounds like an audible grin of delight as they fire off their bullets and take down their targets. And is that throwaway comment at the very end of the track someone saying, “Blow him away”?  Perhaps…No wonder the industry was frightened, and tracks like Into the Mission perpetuated the myth, created by concerned members of the patriarchy that feminism didn’t mean equality, but rather subjugation of male identity. 

Although the track could be found on Huggy Bear’s side of their split album with Bikini Kill, they also chose it as one of the tracks to give away in a limited edition single, made available as a Valentine’s evening gift to attendees at their gig at the Richmond in Brighton on 14/2/93.

Video courtesy of random content.

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