#orphanbanduk

[thereandbackbyphill]

Little England sleep tonight. Don’t worry if things aren’t going right. You are not alone.

Lyrics from ‘Little England’ by Orphan 

[orphanbanduk]

I Dont Want It Like That

I Don’t Want It Like That by Orphan from the first album ‘Phobias’. Released in 1983 on Vinyl only.

Now this was always one of my favourite Orphan songs from the Phobias album. To me it has a kind of story-line that reflected my thoughts on suburbia at the time and how a lot of people in suburbia get sucked into that phony lifestyle through advertising. All that keeping up with Jones’s stuff, trapped in the financial vortex of mortgages and insurance. Kind of weird, considering I was probably working in advertising at the time I wrote it. My god, what a hypocrite I am! The song basically represented me having a pop at the average Joe who spends his life struggling up the career ladder; a victim of peer pressure – always looking for betterment through new cars and houses while all the time life just passes him by. Listening back now I find a lot of sarcasm in the lyric. I love the musicality of the song because the chord sequence is quite unorthodox at the start and there is an underlying sadness, or pathos, in the choice of the chords against the lyric. The song starts in the key of D minor (major 7th ) then moves up to E with an added D. Not exactly pop song vernacular. The song features the whole band: Richard Westwood, drums, Pete Dunn, bass guitar, Phil Campion, keyboards and myself, vocals and rhythm guitars, by the way, one of the rare times I played electric guitar. Richard and Phil C. supply backing vocals. I always loved playing this song live – to me it was personal, but I always hoped anyone that heard the sentiment and was going through the same doubts on their own lifestyle would resonate with its meaning.

‘The next-door neighbour’s got a brand new car  it goes with the job  -  he’s on a winner.

 And his wife it seems has cancelled the bread  she’s losing weight  -  but he’s getting thinner!

 And they can’t break with the Habitat habit  they paint and decorate morning and night

 Curtains, matching quilts and covers  and the cat can’t sleep  -  it’s all so very bright

I don’t want it like that  -  I don’t want it like that.’

Still don’t! Written by: Phill Dunn Performed by: Orphan

Featuring: Lead Vocals / Electric Rhythm Guitar: Phill Dunn Bass Guitars: Pete Dunn Keyboards/Synthesizers: Phil Campion / Backing vocals Drums/Percussion: Richard Westwood / Backing vocals 

MORE about the released album and singles : http://orphanbanduk.tumblr.com/discography

[orphanbanduk]

blog : c10 part 2

We managed to scrape enough money together and booked time at Horizon Studios in Coventry, the recording home of the Two Tone stable of artists like The Specials, Selector and Bad Manners (I think).

 As promised, Kim Thraves came up from London to do the session for us, he stayed with Phil Campion and his wife Sally while in Birmingham.

 So, ten-o-clock one Saturday morning, after negotiating Coventry’s illogical ring road system, we rocked up at Horizon Studios. I can’t recall if it was a 16 track or 24 track desk but it was a pretty impressive studio to me – it had been decorated by one of the owners with all these weird psychedelic murals. It had two sound studios, one of which contained a rather elegant grand piano which Phil C. used for our piano parts. This was the first proper recording studio we had encountered. I remember thinking ‘this is it – we’re on our way!’ (Cue mad megalomaniacal laughter!).

 Now ten-o-clock in the morning is definitely not the most ideal time of day to record. However Kim was already there before us and had managed to brief the recording engineers. We stumbled in carrying our instruments and Kim welcomed us enthusiastically enough and suggested we take breakfast first. Good idea we thought. However his idea of breakfast and ours were somewhat different. As we approached the mixing desk we saw five neat white lines of Columbian marching powder glowing seductively under the mixing desk lights. What to do?

 (Cue the sound of one pound notes being rolled up – yes, one pound notes!).

 So with breakfast over and feeling totally indestructible, we began recording. We did two new songs I’d written: ‘I Don’t Want To Go To Work Tomorrow’, backed with ‘Little Mother.’ Everything went very well.

 I remember listening to the playback in the studio and felt that perhaps there was something missing on the front of ‘I Don’t Want To Go To Work’ so I suggested we put the sound of a typewriter clattering away. It worked great and was a perfect introduction to Phil Vicker’s opening drum riff to bring the song in. There was a certain irony to the lyrics of the song as well, considering there were so many people out of work at the time. Thanks to Herr Thatcher.

 Not long after that, the record was cut and pressed and we were the proud owners of 1,000 vinyl discs with our two songs on them. We even put out a lyric sheet along with the record bag which was simply rubber stamped with the Orphan name. Although the record didn’t get us noticed very much, (probably only ourselves to blame for that, we weren’t that good at marketing ourselves), we did manage to sell quite a few at gigs – enough to buy a pair of big P.A. Bins I think.

 I played ‘I Don’t Want To Go To Work Tomorrow’ recently (someone uploaded the single on Youtube! Thanks to youtuber @psychotron9)  – I couldn’t believe how fast it was!

But I liked it a lot and it brought a big smile to my face. As for Little Mother (the other side) – what on earth was I thinking? (Not one I’m proud of).

  The record came together with the help of the following: Kim and Barry at Horizon and Colin, Micky, John, Rob, Tony, Chris, Julius who all kindly donated their time and talents at different intervals. (I really must try to remember surnames!).

[orphanbanduk]

blog : c10

The hardest part about being in a band, writing and performing original material, (back then), was getting the damn stuff recorded. The cost was always prohibitive. The money earned from our gigs was small after costs were settled. However, around about that time, we found out that Kid Jenson (a B.B.C. Radio One DJ) was running a spot on his radio show called ‘Band of Hope and Glory,’ that featured new bands trying to break into the music scene. We made contact and were offered the chance to record two songs in an old BBC Radio studio in Manchester. (Apparently where some of the Archers programmes were recorded, or so I was told). The songs would then be included in Kid Jenson’s show and a critical appraisal of them would be made by a famous guest. In our case we were appraised by Bob Geldof of The Boomtown Rats. (Pre-Sir Bob).  We recorded Circus and I think the other is You Must Be Jokin’. I was hoping for Bob to say ‘Yeah! Fuckin’ Bollocking, Arse’oling brilliant!!! He didn’t BUT he said he liked Circus! He liked that it had a Blondie type feel to it.(thanks to Johnny Boy, our lighting guy, who confirmed this) I thought well that’s o.k. Blondie had some credibility – plus Debbie Harry probably had the sexiest eyes in the world – mind you, I had better legs! So thanks Sir Bob. The next time we recorded was at a small studio in Gosta Green Birmingham, I think it used to be an old ATV television studio. We recorded a batch of songs there with a view to selling them at gigs (on cassette tapes). I remember You Must Be Jokin’ was one of the songs, written by Trevor our lead guitarist, one I really, really liked, the others that we recorded I can’t recall, apart from Harry The Horse and probably Rain. All were recorded pretty much live. It wasn’t a bad recording but, it didn’t come to much. But we did manage to sell some cassettes. It was on one of the nights we were playing at The Mercat Cross that someone by the name of Kim Thraves introduced himself to us. He’d come up from London and was checking out pub bands in Birmingham. It was a good night I remember, the place was packed. He told us he’d been working on the Great Rock ‘n Roll Swindle, the Julian Temple film about the Sex Pistols. He said he liked what we were doing and suggested that if we could raise the money and book a decent studio he would ‘produce’ a single for us. Big of him I thought! But at last, someone was showing a positive interest in us and someone from London! Wow! Oh the naivety of it all. Anyway, I thought that rather than record something we already were playing in our live sets we should do something different.

[orphanbanduk]

blog : c8

The video, even if unsubtle, does suggest the direction the song was originally intended to go in. And I still love the instrumental melody at the end.

Imagine that with an orchestral score! It could have been so cool.

[orphanbanduk]

blog : c7

[orphanbanduk]

Walking On Water (Rare Demo from Unreleased Album)

A Demo Recording from the unreleased second album ‘Different Levels’.

‘Different Levels’ was to be Orphan’s follow up album after ‘Phobias’. Some demos were recorded but the album was never completed due to record label problems beyond Orphan’s control and was never released as the label owner left the business. ‘Walking On Water’ is a song of abstract images of religious hocus pocus and a tourist approach to war. This song was one of my favourite Orphan songs from the new stuff I was writing and signalled a more aggressive stance for the band. Richard Westwood’s powerful driving drum pattern and my brother Pete’s excellent bass lines create a powerful foundation for the clever interplay between Phil Campion’s keyboards and Keith Jones’ electric violin. Keith’s violin solo is still one of my favourite moments in an Orphan song.  Song Written by: Phill Dunn Performed by: Orphan Featuring: Lead Vocals / Electric Rhythm Guitar: Phill Dunn Bass Guitars: Pete Dunn Keyboards/Synthesizers: Phil Campion / Backing vocals Electric Violin: Keith Jones Drums/Percussion: Richard Westwood / Backing vocals  MORE about the unreleased second album : http://orphanbanduk.tumblr.com/unreleased

[orphanbanduk]

blog : c6