Bristol Archive Records Blog

Archive for June, 2009

Booted and Suited

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

 

 ‘Booted and suited’ featuring extracts from the Bristol Archives is now on the bookshelves of Britain and on the websites of the world…

 
 

Island Records

Saturday, June 13th, 2009

 

Here’s a link to a great documentary on ’50 years of Island Records’

How Chris Blackwell changed the music scene forever!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kvd38

BRISTOL ARCHIVE RECORDS JUNE UPDATES

Friday, June 5th, 2009

www.bristolarchiverecords.com

 

Another busy month for the label with the following releases and additions to the site.

 

New Releases this month:

 

ARC096   The Long March   Album  ‘Confuoco’

 

Compiled and remastered by Paul Whitrow

 

ARC097  Colortapes      Ep      ‘GBH Demos 1978’

 

‘As we were sitting around trying to think of a name for the band, Ebo threw the name of the film The Anderson Tapes into the round. It was one of those many all-nighters, sometimes constructive evenings, sometimes just trying to figure out the meaning of life. Where the Color bit came from I honestly don’t know. If it had been now, we’d most likely have gone for the English spelling. Anyway, so there we were, remnants of a band called The News, there was me, Nick Russell, Simon Blackmore, Kevin Evans and Danny Pepworth. The News had been founded in 1977, when it was harder not to be in a band than be in one;  there was Jon and James Klein, who went on to achieve universal fame as the Europeans, as you will very well be aware, Nick, Kevin and myself. Nick didn’t stay in the band too long. We did a few gigs together and after he left I was persuaded to reluctantly take over the vocals. The main reason being was that I wrote the lyrics after all. Reluctantly because the thought of playing centre forward in a band did not work wonders for my anal retention at the time. However, sometimes in life you’ve just got to get on with it. In 1978, due to the proverbial “musical differences”, Kev and I decided to split from Jon and James and Colortapes was born.’…….

 

Remastered by Steve Street

 

ARC098   Europeans      Ep       ‘GBH Demos 1978’

 

‘Johnathan Cole, Jon Klein, Steve Street and James Cole are ‘Europeans’.  Before February of this year, they all had different nationalities.  Jonathan was a Colortape, Jon was an Emergency Exit and Steve was a Public Enemy Number One.  They formed simply because ‘We didn’t have a band’ after meeting and jamming together in rehearsal studios.

 

The band is a good mixture of unusual personalities.  Their musical tastes cross only occasionally and so ‘There’s a good balance.’  Jon and Steve like heavy metal, whereas Jonathan, who listens to David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Roxy etc, hates it.  James seems to be more of a blues person:- Rolling Stones, John Mayall.’……..

 

Remastered by Steve Street

 

 

ARC099     Moskow      Ep         ‘Crescent Studios Demos 1979’

 

Moscow is a name which conjures up no musical expectations, because of its bleakness one can’t identify any particular type of music with it.  It’s the ideal name for this band.  Moscow can’t be classified, their music is too varied.  They have been compared, in places, to The Stranglers, Captain Beefheart, Pink Floyd and The Who.  But it just can’t be pinpointed any more than saying, ‘this bit sounds like x, and this a bit like y.’

They mix the ‘commercial’ with the ‘weird’ drawing on a wide range of musical styles and experiences; ‘If we play varied music, we’re going to get a varied audience.’  Influences range from Capt. Beefheart and Stanley Clarke, through Led Zep, Van def Graaf Generator, Hendrix and Cream to Kate Bush.(!)’…

 

Remastered by Steve Street

 

ARC100    Tesco Chainsaw Massacre’    Album        ‘Live at The Bear 1978’

 

Nick Sheppard  - Guitar

Steve Swan – Bass

Danny Swan – Drums

Johnny Britton – Guitar

Steve Street – Bass

John Shennan – Bass

Mike Crawford – Voice

Jo Swan – Voice

 

Remastered by Steve Street

 

ARC101    Blue Movies       Single      ‘Mary Jane’

 

Originally released in 1979 via Rok Records

Produced by Blue Movies in Bristol

Track written by Embrain and subsequently played by Sneak Preview

Remastered by Steve Street in 2009

 

 

ARC102    Gardez Darkx      Album     ‘S.M.TIGER’

 

‘Probably the most striking thing about Latif Gardez is that he is an individual.  He is not part of any current trend, or fashion (not even any anti-fashion!); nor does he seem to be manipulated by the desire to maintain any set image.  He strikes me as being absolutely sincere about himself and about the group:  There is no pretence about Latif Gardez, rather a kind of honesty and directness, which one has to admire, and yet there is something about him which makes me feel a little insecure’……

 

Remastered by Steve Street

 

 

Thanks to Simon Edwards of Heartbeat Records for making many of these recordings available.

 

Heartbeat Records

 

New photos and press cuttings added to this section of the site, including Glaxobabies, Private Dicks and Storm Trooper.

 

Also a radio interview with Simon Edwards from 1978.

 

 

Loaded Fanzine

 

All seven editions of this fanzine available as complete downloads. Written by Tim Williams and started in 1976 these are real Punk Rock documents…..

 

‘Loaded. Good name for a magazine. At least, James Brown and IPG, the publishers of Britain’s first ‘lads mag’ thought so. But their’s wasn’t the first monthly to bear that ambiguous title. I got there first at the dog end of 1976. When the slightly glossier Loaded appeared in 1994 I noted that they had resisted the strong temptation to scrawl the title in felt tip. They knew I was out there waiting to sue their ass.

 

My Loaded was named after the Velvet Underground album of that name because back in 76 the Velvets were one of those bands you had to revere, like the New York Dolls and the Stooges.’………

 

 

Other Fanzines

 

Complete PDF downloads available of other notable fanzines including, Black Dwarf, React and ‘Keep Upright, Do Not Bend’ featuring interviews with The Media and Gardez Darkx in 1978.

 

Videos now added:

 

Check out videos from The Escape, Love Jungle, Fear of Darkness, Dry, Either/Or  and Apache Dropout all added to the site or visit www.youtube.com/bristolarchiverecord

 

New T Shirts:

 

Recently added new designs from The Pigs, The Long March and The Delegates.

 

Photos and text additions from:

 

Gardez Darkx

The Media

Moskow

Europeans

Colortapes

Rita Lynch

Fear of Darkness

Love Jungle

Misdemeanor

Dry

 

The Peoples Section – ‘The Hot Bear Club 1977’

 

Check out the amazing pictures and story from Dave Alax Riddett

 

‘Fresh from Art college in Leeds I came to Bristol in 1977 to do a Post Grad film course at the University Drama Dept., by christmas that year I had moved into 73 Queens Rd an infamous shared house above a shop  on the Triangle, Queens Rd. ,  and home to an eclectic collection of Artists, Poets, Musicians etc. Very soon I got to know several very young musicians the likes of Paul Hollywood, Marc and Jerry Clements and was rather surprised to find  that  there was a seemingly lack of venues for new bands.

Still buzzing from my experience of a 70s punk fuelled arts and music scene in Leeds where any empty space, building, back room was quickly turned into a venue I searched for a similar blank canvas in this wonderfully laid back Bristol. ‘………

 

More next month with new releases from:

Apartment

Social Security

The Delegates

Headlines

Tropical Hearts

Joe public

Primates

The Media

The Numbers

The Homecoming

The Gas Taps

News Flash:

 

If you live in Bristol – Don’t forget The Stingrays at the Thunderbolt Sat 13th June.

 

Plus more videos and more T SHIRT designs, keep checking back for more info

www.bristolarchiverecords.com