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Howard Eynon - So What If Im Standing In Apricot Jam (Basket Records - BFPS005, 1974)

Howard Eynon's So What If Im Standing In Apricot Jam is one such record. Copies crop up now and again 'commanding' prices up to $850 - like this one for example, or this more modestly priced copy here. Are they even priced to sell? Is any record worth that kind of money? Who knows. What is certain though is this a great record. Truly. Nothing can rationalise $850 for an album of course, but if you've got deep enough pockets to pull the trigger on a 'collectable' So What If Im Standing In Apricot Jam won't let you down on the musical quality end of the deal. 

Recorded in Tasmania in 1974 and released on obscure local label Basket Records, Howard Eynon's singular contribution to the psych-folk firmament is equal parts outsider introspection, theatrical exuberance, acid-fried Donovan-isms, and playful slice-of-life observations. It's a joyously bonkers collection of songs recorded at the now defunct Spectangle Productions studio in Hobart. The scene around Spectangle at the time was a creative, hippy-ish vibe with a revolving cast of eccentrics (many of whom appear on this record; local artist and Tolkien enthusiast Luke Swann provided the sleeve layout and back cover illustrations) presided over by studio owner and producer Nick Armstrong. A pretty interesting character in his own right - here's Nick's website about the end of the world (or something) and here's a short video where he explains how he can photograph your aura (!). 

Like Spectangle Productions, the record has a lot going on. Flutes and violins duck in and out, mellotron and synthesizers rub shoulders with Eynon's Anglo-Aussie twang and his bright, twelve-string guitar playing. There's a knowing, playful delivery in the vocals, and in places an almost camp play school quality that makes total sense given his parallel career as a stage actor (plus various film and television credits, including playing one of the crazed bikers in the first Mad Max film) and former winner of Australian TV talent show New Faces. 

Importantly though it all feels completely natural and sincere. I can't think of anything worse than a record of affected, actorly pseudo-folk, but Howard Eynon's approach comes off as honest self-expression and is so thoroughly shot through with warmth and character it's an easy LP to love.

It's been authoritatively rumoured that this record will be getting the 'deluxe reissue treatment' soon, so perhaps we can look forward to a non-ridiculously priced version. In the meantime it's worth noting that ALL copies of this record that turn up second-hand are from the original pressing of 500 even though some copies bear the Basket Records label while a smaller number have the Candle Records design. From what I can glean the label was in the process of changing its name at the time and simply ran out of Basket Records labels half way through. 

For fans of: Neil Innes, Syd Barrett, Donovan, Roy Harper, Comus, Michael Chapman etc.

Record: 10/10 (oh yes!)

Sleeve: 8/10

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The Vince Earl Attraction - Can't Get Enough (Amazon Records, 1973)

There he takes out the record and goes back to the lounge. Headphones on (don’t want to wake the missus) and a cup of cocoa and Vince sits back in his recliner and lets his past fill his mind.

It’s December 1975, a week or so before Christmas, and Vince and the band have taken the train from Liverpool to Birmingham. First episode of the new series of New Faces and the Vince Earl Attraction are going on to make an impression.

Through the crackle of the vinyl he recalls every moment. The trudge across the city to the ATV Studios, instruments piled up on a nicked British Rail trolley. The sun is already down behind the buildings and orange street lights bathe everything in a fuzzy neon glow. Billy is moaning about a pie he ate on the way down and then asking if they can stop at every Wimpy Bar they pass. Vince is worried they won’t make it in time, their slot being given to somebody else and so tells him to shut up. The city is full of concrete monoliths, rain lashed and unforgiving. Relentless dual carriageways bracket the band’s journey. For fun, Barrie affects an Irish accent and asks a passer-by where the studios are. They look back at him with suspicion and loathing and it is only then that Barrie remembers the pubs that were torn apart just two years earlier and he hurries on, trying not to hear the person shouting abuse at his back.

Over the concrete walkways and under the concrete subways and up the concrete steps and into the glass and leather studio lobby, the receptionist calling the floor manager, the floor manager sending a runner, the runner taking them to Studio 3, the floor manager telling them they are late and the runner taking them to a shared dressing room. No time for modesty, stripping down to y-fronts, clouds of talcum powder and fogs of deodorant, a pair of make-up girls doing the best they can to make these faces suitable for a television audience. Derek Hobson drifting through, hair and smile immobile, coffee and B&H on his breath as he grips Vince’s hand and says “Do a good show, lads.” and then he is gone, retreating to his own dressing room to talk with the producer.          

The technical rehearsal and between camera set-ups Vince ad libs a few jokes. The crew laughs, the host laughs, the panel laughs, expect for Mickie Most who huffs and puffs and sulks and refolds his arms but everyone ignores him anyway and he returns back to simply glowering at everybody.

Then the show is live and they’re up first and Arthur Askey nicks Vince’s rehearsal jokes and the panel laugh, and the host laughs, and the audience laugh harder and Askey looks at Vince with those joyless black eyes, “I dare you, I fucking dare you to say something playmate” they say, and then the Attraction are up and playing the Barry White number that has been tearing the roof off clubs across the North East since 1974 and the panel applauds, and the host applauds, and the audience applauds harder, the audience really applauds and while the studio lights are bright, blinding bright, Vince sees a future fuzzily forming in front of him.

Back to the present and that future still dances in front of him as he turns over the album. It is one of victory, of deafening applause and maximum points from the panel and a good natured hug from Askey once the cameras have stopped rolling. It is a future of guest slots on the Morecambe and Wise Show and appearances on Top of the Pops. It is a future of albums recorded with Mickie Most in his studios, albums that reach number one and bloody well stay there. It is a future of Royal Variety Shows and sell-out nights at the Talk of the Town and the Birmingham Night Out. It is a future of their own variety shows, first on LWT and then on the BBC, running for years, always topping the ratings, always getting the good guest stars. It is a future where they see out the 1970s playing the Rainbow, where they see out the 1980s playing the Marquee, where they see out the 1990s at the Millennium Dome as guests of Cherie Blair, leading an all-star chorus of ‘Hey Jude’. It is a future of semi-retirement in the ‘00s, giving the occasional interview for Record Collector or Mojo, overseeing the occasional box-set, doing the occasional short tour, smaller venues admittedly but still packed to the rafters.

It is a future.

But it is not this future.

No, this future is one undone by a fuzzy cockney bear and a balding amateur ventriloquist who can’t even hide his lips from moving.

A fuzzy cockney, boss-eyed bear in a waistcoat, that has Askey and Most and the crew and the audience and the country howling with laughter.

And it is at that moment that Vince knows that the future he could see through those glaring stage lights has danced away from him. It is a future now of more working men’s clubs, of more sets sandwiched between the sodding bingo and a blue comedian, of more motorway service stations and Billy’s dodgy guts because he has to eat something at every one they pass. And only one album, recorded hastily in some no-mark studio with some no-mark producer who will dub fake applause on the final track. It is a future where the silver-lining is Ron Dixon and his ‘Moby’ and turning up at memorabilia fairs charging a tenner per signed photograph and listening to some twat do Harry Enfield’s Scouser impression and smiling politely. It is a future where the music is now just a footnote, a punchline, a “remember when you lost New Faces to Nookie Bear, Vince, you daft meff.”

The album comes to a close with that plastic applause and Vince knows that if he listens to anymore he’ll just keep looking at that other future. And that won’t do, that won’t do at all.

Look away Vince.

Look away.           

Record: 4/10

Sleeve: 5/10

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Silver City Sound - Yours Sincerely (SRTY - 1981, CUS 911)

Scene from an unmade episode of Grange Hill, circa 1981:

Trisha Yates and Cathy Hargreaves are sacking off school. It's shoes off and feet up as Cathy goes through Trisha’s parent’s records, sipping some nicked Cinzano Bianco. "Flippin' eck, Trish! Who are this lot?" She waves a copy of Silver City Sound in the air and the girls cackle before putting on the Human League.

I put this album on expecting to hear jaunty, Chas ‘n Dave-esque knees-ups with maybe a slow-dancing number to round it all out. I mean, look at the glossy photo of them in front the steam engine! They look like party guys; the kind of guys that would get a round in at your local Labour club. “Four pints of best and three bags of cheese & onion, please, and take for one yourself, love.” They are valued members of the darts team. Looking at that glossy and you’re getting ready for some good ol’ boogie-woogie, some meaty and beaty rock n’ roll.

And then I take a second look at the album cover and doubts creep in. Where the glossy is all summer fun down at the town and country fair, this is very much the thick end of winter. It’s January 3rd and Christmas and New Year are definitely over and it is the start of a year-long hangover. Take a read of the sleeve notes for further proof. Lead singer Dave Clancey is all jokes and fun, fun, fun when he asks why you would want to release this on an unsuspecting public. Ha! He’s such a wag! I bet he is the life and soul in the lounge bar on a Sunday evening. But something doesn’t feel right here. Why does he keep making jokes about Silver City Sound and their “one fan”? And those not-so-subtle references to expensive equipment? And that PS of “makes a good ashtray doesn’t it.”? There is a fine line with self-deprecating humour; too much and you lurch into barely concealed self-loathing. Behind all those jokes Dave doesn’t sound like he is a happy man.

For the final proof, the smoking gun is the album content itself.

You’re expecting some good-time fun. What you get are icy mid-tempo ballads and standards but given an uncomfortable futuristic sheen through the liberal use of a vocoder. The familiar, the comforting is made unsettling. The Billy Joel number ‘Just the Way You Are’, a cozy love song about finding your ideal partner and being happy with them, is transformed into a chilling ode to conformity. Even more unsettling is ‘I Don’t Want to Find Someone New’, where the lovelorn ballad sounds like it is being sung by a stalker with eerie Cybermen harmonies. It’s a love song performed by the Terminator.     

What happened?

What could have undone the cheery blokes enjoying a day out at the Nene Valley railway? 

And then it hits me.

These are the faces and brave smiles of the weekend access dad.

The determined grin while his son opens the gift of a knock-off Battlestar Galactica action figure. The son then telling him how “Uncle” Wayne brought them an Atari last week. Saturday lunchtimes spent wandering around the shopping centre with the kids, or maybe to the park if the weather is nice. Taking them for lunch in Wimpy as a treat but asking them not to order those expensive looking milk-shakes. Trying to avoid the gaze of some his new betting shop pals while he’s got the kids, the last thing he wants is a boozed up chancer embarrassing him. Walking the kids back home from the bus-stop and leaving them at the front gate, perhaps waving to the ex-wife who watches from the window though he knows she’ll never return it. Not now anyway. Taking the bus back to the flat, beans on toast for dinner with a couple of cans, can’t afford the pub tonight, and then feet up and falling asleep halfway through Shoestring. Waking up in the cold and the dark because the meter is dead and seeing he has no change so will have to sort it tomorrow when the corner shop opens so going to bed wearing a cardigan to keep warm.

If only he hadn’t spent so much money on all that expensive equipment for the band.   

Record: 3/10

Sleeve: 5/10

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Bunretsu - Aishu No Chernóbil (Rinri-Gui-Ongaku-Honpo/Telegraph - RINRI-1, 1988)

The lead track is a bizarre stagey duet that bursts into spoken word and screaming around the 4 minute mark. Kinda sounds like a Eurovision entry from Mars. Things get far more interesting on the flip however. Track one builds from Yokai’s atonal bass riffing and some restless snare action to full on sax-led skronk with our main man screaming his heart out. The finale to this madness brings the funk (what else?), albeit some seriously damaged funk. Jun Yamaguchi’s guitar is the star of this last tune, coming on like a post-punk Eddie Hazel, as he doubles up sick leads with middle pickup Stratocaster tomfoolery. Yokai issues echoed proclamations in the background and we’re none the wiser. Quite a ride though. More info please!   

Record: 6.5/ 10

Sleeve: 7.5/ 10

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The Cardinals - Sweet And Refreshing (Nelmwood Audio - NWA1, 1971)

Three guys and a girl.

It could be a hashtag or the descriptor for some bland, run-of-the-mill pornography.

1997: Sleeper are meandering through some light-weight Britpop, Louise Wener fulfilling every scuzzy school-teacher fantasy that Chris Evans ever had.        

1990: Transvision Vamp are plying their reheated glam rock/Velvets noise on a Saturday morning kids TV show, the cameramen trying not to spill themselves as they focus and re-focus and re-focus on Wendy James.    

1988: The Darling Buds (or is The Primitives?) thrash their way across one of Top of the Pops smaller stages, Tracy Tracy (or is it Andrea Lewis?) pouting at the camera from time to time, even though she told the Melody Maker she thinks that kind of thing is “just bullshit, really”.

And behind each of them, being resolutely ignored by audiences and cameramen, journalists and TV hosts are three guys plugging away. The XY engine room; entirely aware that anonymity is a pre-requisite for them. Session work and maybe a line-up appearance on Never Mind the Buzzcocks await them.

Back, back we go ….

…their names tumbling past…

….Texas, The Cranberries, The Cardigans ...

….further back

….Pretenders, Tourists  

…X-Ray Spex, Blondie…

…

Back until we finally wash up on the shores of the very hinterlands of what can be classed as pop music. Ultima thule

The Cardinals - the primordial mud from which all future female fronted bands grow.    

Yet even a cursory look over of the cover to Sweet and Refreshing, their 1970 sophomore outing, and you can see the cracks beginning to show. The future histories of a million future bands are being written here in the cover shot; the musical and cultural differences which will shatter them, and those who will follow, into a thousand pieces. 

At first glance this is just an everyday acoustic folk foursome, the forest setting loudly showing that these guys are not going to betray the folk collective by going electric. They will never hear anybody call them “Judas!” But modernity insidiously creeps in.

Check out the centre guitarist. “What about him?” you ask, “He seems like an everyday kind of guy.”

Look again.

Look again at those sunglasses, those sideburns. No tie or regulation pale slacks for him, oh no. There is the whiff of machinery about him, he smells of electricity and the combustion engine. He most likely drove out to this photo session, while the others hitchhiked. He is not long for The Cardinals.

Then look at the banjo picker on the left and measure the distance between him and the other band members. If the centre guitarist is the future, itching to break away, then this banjo strummer is the traditionalist, the ‘if-it’s-not-broke, then-don’t-fix-it’ man. He’s been through the folk wars and is living to tell the tale. They may not have won the recent battles with Dylan and his ilk, but the war goes on for him.

And between these two musical Janus’ is 17 year-old vocalist Anne Morris, already unsure of where she sits on the folk fence. There are no beads and shawls here, just a sensible raincoat. But those knee-length boots and hint of a mini-skirt tell us that a guest spot on ‘The Two Ronnies’ wouldn’t be out of place in her future.

This schizophrenia is matched in the track-listing. While much of the playlist (“Spanish Lady”, “Kilgarry Mountains”, “Will Ye Go”) would not be out of place in any folk club of the time (or indeed today!) the fingerprints of the now are also there. “Summer Wine” was made famous by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood, for instance. “Leaving on a Jet Plane” was already a show-business standard in 1970 and Sinatra recorded his own version that same year. “Morning Please Don’t Come” was written by Dusty Springfield’s brother, Tom. But while this idle thinking could lead one to speculate that The Cardinals were preparing to shake off their folky chains take note of the album closer, a rudimentary run through of the Woody Guthrie anthem “This Land”. And the instrument that pushes its way to the fore, duelling with Anne Morris’ vocals? The banjo.

The make-up of The Cardinals may have heralded the future line-up of so many bands but their choice of material keeps them confined to the half-lit, dusty corners of history, idly plucking a banjo string and watching balefully as they are left behind.       

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The Editors - Thought Police (Devil Records - DEV1, 1981)

The B-side "Thoughts and Echoes" is just the instrumental track from side one with fragments of the chorus swishing aimlessly here and there. My needle got stuck at some point and I didn’t notice.

The best thing about this single is the handmade sleeve. Unlike the fussily produced record inside, it's total DIY simplicity. Just a sheet of yellow A3, photocopied and folded to hold the record in place. The artwork is pure A Level psychedelia; all fire balls and tentacles and other miscellaneous heavy-duty glyphs. It tells us precisely nothing about the music contained within (someone has helpfully written ‘local band, self-produced’ on the front cover in biro though), not sure if that’s intended as a selling point or a warning? It’s added value as far as I’m concerned.

The Thought Police 7” was the inaugural release on Devil Records, after which the label promptly did nothing for two years before, weirdly, putting out Lisa Stansfield’s first ever single. Coincidentally the B-side of Stansfield’s debut was a cover version of Thought Police. Although ‘cover’ might be generous, refurbished version might be more accurate. Or up-cycled? It sounds like they just deleted the original vocals and slapped Lisa’s over the top. Which, like the sleeve, is economical if nothing else. 

Record: 2.5/10 

Sleeve: 6.5/10

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Don Jose & Enzo Fernando – Night Out At The Concordia Notte (Sun Recording Services/ Moonshine - MS66, 1976)

Glassed were clinked, goals were scored, attendances doubled, capillaries burst. There were champagne moments on the pitch, and safe to say plenty of champagne (and Chivas Regal, and Pernod & Lemonade, and Whitbread Trophy… ) moments off it. Fulham rocketed to fourth place in the second division. Reasonably priced authentic Italian food was eaten. Times were good. If the walls of the Concordia Notte, or any of the fashionable West End bars and restaurants, could speak they’d tell a bacchanalian tale of football stars, minor celebrities, 70s dolly birds and tasteful Latin-American background music no doubt. But walls can’t talk. Which means all we have to go on is our imaginations and this record by Don José and Enzo Fernando to fill in the blanks.

So sit back, uncork a bottle of Mateus Rosé, cue up this video and drop the needle on the record… 

Record: 5/10

Sleeve: 4/10

Note: Brian Brocklehurst on bass. He literally worked with them all!

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Mike Connor & the Carrot Crunchers - Back In The Cotswolds (Bumpkin Records - Bumpkin 001, 1986)

It would be fair to say that humorous, double entendre-laced, folk-style music sung in a pronounced West Country accent is a niche business. 

And while it might be a little too agricultural for mainstream tastes nowadays, for a brief golden era rustic, cider-soused, parodic pop was (relatively) big business. Adge Cutler & The Wurzels, the undisputed kings of the scene, had genuine chart hits with a run of singles including "Drink Up Thy Zider" and "Una Paloma Blanca", before making it all the way to number one in 1976 with "The Combine Harvester". The sleeve of which excellently illustrates both the genre's playful 'Southern Rebel' spirit and a flagrant disregard for health and safety. The public were hooked.

Mike Connor and his Carrot Crunchers never quite reached same heights as their better known Somerset rivals. Think of them as a scrumpy & western Herman’s Hermits to The Wurzels' bumpkin Beatles. That’s not to say they didn’t have their moments, they released a couple of excellently sleeved records through EMI and Marble Arch in the wake of The Wurzels’ rise, but the hits failed to materialise for the boys from Gloucester. Mike (or ‘Shag’ as he was known, on account of his trademark sideburns – they supposedly resembled large clumps of rough shag tobacco) and the lads had a long career in the margins packing them in in the rugby clubs and corn exchanges of the South West (which looks like it was a right laugh, judging by the photos in this Facebook group) and continued to put out albums, despite diminishing returns, through their own Bumpkin Records imprint. 

Back in the Cotswolds saw the Carrot Crunchers return to their Gloucestershire roots. It’s a stripped back affair, recorded at their own studio - The Chicken Shack, an actual chicken shack - and sold direct to fans at shows. The sleeve is pretty self-explanatory, a classic "band-wearing-neckerchiefs-posing-with-a-cockerel-by-a-barrel-cropped-slightly-off-centre" set up. It does the job. For the record, the guy crouching bottom right is NOT a young Bono (or Reece Dinsdale) despite what you may have read elsewhere, and the cockerel Shag's holding looks to be Stuffin, an Old English Game fowl that worked with the band throughout the 80s. 

This copy is autographed by the band – as these kind of records tend to be.

Record: 4.5/10

Sleeve: 5/10

Key Track: Fans of regional accents should get a kick out of the South Gloucs/ North Wilts burr all over "Little Blondie Called Jean" (posted below), particularly on the pronunciation of coffee. Rustic. 

"Good Luck from Ole Shag Connors xxxx"