Invented Record Collector

Sharing the #rarevinyl and #rockhistory of obscure British #indie label, Invented Records.

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Total Eclipse of My Art by Bonnie Tyler (EP - 1984)

The story of how mega-selling Welsh chanteuse, Bonnie Tyler, came to record a bizarre EP of Goth covers hinges upon the influence of Invented Records founder, Max Scratch.

This South London Svengali, equal parts Andrew Loog Oldham and Nosferatu, had a misfiring genius for pulling people into his vainglorious, chemically-driven visions and then completely fucking up their execution.

He genuinely loved nurturing leftfield talent – often willing to make a bet on the next big thing based on one gig in a dingey pub. Those bets were almost always completely wrong, as is evidenced by the continuing irrelevance of the Invented Records back-catalogue.

However disastrous his navigation of the music business, Max had two things that meant he was the most connected man in the British music scene during the 1980s: a seemingly never-ending supply of primo-grade narcotics – and copious amounts of blackmail material.

Some have described him as a gangster, but only after he disappeared whilst holidaying in Thanet during the summer of 1997.

Scratch’s base of operations during the 1980s was his Croydon nightclub, ‘Das Boot’. I’ll no doubt cover the tawdry history of this concrete sonic bunker at some point, but all you need to know for the purposes of this post is that on one star-crossed sweltering Saturday night in July 1984, Bonnie Tyler, Wayne Hussey of the Sisters of Mercy and Ian Astbury of The Cult were all sharing a booth in the Das Boot VIP lounge, hosted by the loquacious Invented Records impresario.

Tyler was an international megastar at the time, but her new single ‘Holding Out For A Hero’ was barely registered on the charts (though it would go to number 2 the following year). She was in London to promote the single, but felt it wasn’t her best work after the Wagnerian grandeur of her previous collaborations with Jim Steinman. She was looking for a new musical direction and, surprisingly, was a big fan of the rapidly evolving Goth genre. “I loved Bauhaus, Birthday Party, but especially the Sisters. I was handed a tape of their music by Duncan Kilburn from the Psychedelic Furs,” she later revealed in an interview. “I was recording in LA and the Furs were in the studio next door. Duncan was wearing a Merciful Release T-shirt and that got us talking. I listened to the tape repeatedly whenever I got a moment. It was so dark and raw – miles from the polished fluff I felt I was recording at the time.”

Having floated into Tyler’s circle via his acquaintance with her manager, Ronnie Scott, Scratch invited her down to Das Boot without knowing any of this.

The Sisters of Mercy had just finished recording their first album, ‘First and Last and Always’, but Hussey was increasingly estranged from Sisters lead singer, Andrew Eldritch, before the album had even been released. He came to Das Boot to discuss moving to Invented Records with a newly configured band.

Finally, Astbury of The Cult had turned up because he was shit-faced after a gig promoting recently released album, Dreamtime. He knew Scratch was good for cheap amphetamines.

In the booth that night, Tyler hit it off with both men, and, ever attuned to the main chance, Scratch offered to take them all to the Invented studio above the club for a jam session.

Pulling in a few random musicians from the darker corners of Das Boot, Scratch acted as engineer himself, as Tyler recorded some very rough one-take tracks with Hussey on lead guitar, and Astbury on percussion and backing vocals.

“It was amazing how great her voice was – she just kept belting out these amazing vocals, despite the epic intake of tequila and cigarettes,” Hussey said.

As dawn reluctantly illuminated Croydon’s cut-price imitation of the Manhattan skyline, Tyler was tracked down by her management and whisked into a limo. Perhaps, once sober, she realised that Goth wasn’t her future. Perhaps, fearing for their income stream, Ronnie Scott and Steve Wolfe persuaded her to drop the idea.

Either way, Bonnie Tyler continued in an increasingly mainstream musical direction. Even if she had any memory of that crazy Croydon night, it was quickly forgotten due to the whirlwind of touring commitments.

However, Scratch had not forgotten. Four of the tracks from that funereal jam session to would eventually surface on the EP, ‘Total Eclipse of My Art’, released by Invented in October 1984.

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Lost in Consumption by Johnny & The Yee Men (single - 1980)

In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, there are a fascination with Asian culture in post-Punk music. ‘Turning Japanese’ by The Vapors; ‘Japanese Boy’ by Aneka; ‘Hong Kong Garden’ by Souxsie & The Banshees. All songs toying with Far Eastern themes in their own way, some more crass or arguably racist than others, appropriating musical riffs from the region. It is ironic, then, that the only post-Punk song by someone from the British-Chinese community – and, indeed, a very early commentary on cultural appropriation - was banned by the BBC and disappeared into obscurity.

John Yee’s family hailed from Hong Kong and he lived in Manchester’s China Town, where his parents ran a supermarket catering to the community’s specialist culinary needs. A complete outlier at the time, he was the only British-Chinese person involved with the burgeoning Mancunian post-punk music scene, the Yee Men building a reputation for ferocious performances at the raucous Electric Circus venue.

This brought the band to the attention of Invented Records founder, Max Scratch, who swiftly signed them and released a single, ‘Lost in Consumption’. A furious diatribe against the way Britain ‘ate’ Johnny’s culture and reduced it to cliché, it was carried along by an ear-battering guitar riff and merciless drums.

The song famously included the couplet ‘You want another fucking spring roll? I’ll stick it up your fucking hole’. This brought it to the attention of the DJ, Dave Lee-Travis, who complained that he shouldn’t be verbally abused for, in his words, ‘enjoying a great meal from the local chinky’.

This led to the record being banned by the BBC and the single flopped, perhaps confirming Johnny’s assertions about the British public.

What happened to Johnny Yee afterwards is lost in the mists of rock myth-making, and probably the subject of another post in the near future...

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Fenderfixion by Ghostverb (album - 1979)

Another rare record from my Invented Records collection - this one from 1979. This was an early release from the label - and Ghostverb's first album. Going against the complete rejection of prog-rock at the time, it’s actually a concept album – telling the tale of the abusive, painful, erotic relationship between the artist and his guitar.

The album has a raw, stripped-down garage band sound, with some early synths. The highlight is definitely the ‘Forsake Me’, with its Oedipal rage and addictive bassline. It features rather rudimentary sleeve art from R.Jewel – the illustration utilizing letratone, one of the artist’s signature techniques.

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Disintegrating Eve by Index6 (12" single - 1984)

I recently recovered my long-lost record collection from a barn in W. Sussex, England. Among the lost treasures were a bunch of releases from Invented Records, an obscure but influential British post-punk label. I’m going to share this rare vinyl here – and uncover a bit of rock history along the way.

The first record in this series is a 12-inch single released in 1984. It’s by Coventry band, Index6, featuring cover art by underground cartoonist R.Jewel (as did many of the label’s releases).

The A-side, ‘Disintegrating Eve’, sounds like the Sisterhood had a car-crash with The Fall. In the B-side, ‘Blind Dogs’, the crash victims are on life support in ER.

Perhaps it’s not surprising this band never made it to a second release, despite the willingness of the label’s founder, Max Scratch, to support sonic experiments. I bought it for the cover – definitely one to look at and not listen to!