LOVE JUNGLE
Welcome To The House Where The Extras Are Free
Bristol Archive Records

Love Jungle brought out this cheeky album and a decent 12” EP with a lot of other stuff unreleased, which was a shame as they had real potential during the late 80’s indie whirlpool of colliding opposites. Sadly the labels were all looking for dance crossover bands at the time and something like this curiously gritty pop quartet missed out. They’d come out of the excellent Fear Of Darkness where Neil Darby was the guitar lynchpin and Angela had been an interesting addition on backing vocals, and that sense of ebullient melodic control continued here.

‘Wasn’t There Something’ gets whisked initially by frisky darting guitar, then the leisurely grand vocals ascend the sturdy stairs of a confident chorus. A lithe thing it’s all glittery and soft when some more dive-bombing bass and drums would have added real dynamics, but it’s very Popinjays! (This is always A Good Thing.) ‘Am I Good Enough’ is much snappier and with a decent production could have been a hit, but viewed retrospectively it’s a bit weird. Great ideas, sweet song, but the harder element is clearly negated by the winsome elements. ‘Cast Adrift’ bubbles with MTV-friendly guitar nibbles and a sliding gliding feel while creamy vocals smother the surface. Once again you realise this could have been even better because it lingers long, but seems almost too busy.

‘Blue Skies’ has the starkness the earlier songs lack and it jars and jostles brilliantly. The vocals are meaner, with the same wafting backing, but the tougher, blunter approach suits them well. ‘That’s The Way’ is easy going and efficient indie pop with a gently glazed chorus again, which they seemed to churn out so easily. Ditto the brightly swaying ‘Between The Poles’ which would have benefited from more shadow, as they do drift by rather absent-mindedly. Being weirder, stiller and pained ‘I Really Don’t Care’ is immediately intriguing, although the aerated nature of Angela’s vocals are sometimes a little too grating. More sensibly grounded, she bustles through ‘This Covenant’ which seems almost hesitant about allowing the guitar to stamp its identity on the son g, which it’s crying out for.

They were much tougher live, and while this polite selection remains charming it also shows how trying to appeal to major label tastes can leave a band in quasi-limbo.

Taken from www.mickmercer.com

Various artists- The Best of Fried Egg Records (Bristol 1979 – 1980) Review by Rob S

Celebrating the varied fruits of Bristol’s Post punk/punk/pop/etc scene at the tail end of the seventies, ‘The Best Of Fried Egg Records (Bristol 1979-1980)’ does exactly what it says on the tin. At the time, Bristol based Fried Egg records played host to the crème de la crème of local talent (I.e., a slightly bizarre mix of resolutely un-commercial, experimental and idiosyncratic artists of all ages and denominations,) and this collection features a number of the most memorable and oddly compelling acts to emerge from this brief period of convention flouting creativity, including bands such as The Various Artists, Art Objects and brilliantly named Exploding Seagulls. Yes, this is as strange a listen as you might hear this side of David Lynch’s brain… eccentric, quintessentially British, and an essential listen for those who witnessed the short lived phenomenon first hand, as well as musical historians and music fans who lament the loss of song titles such as ‘Johnny Runs For Paregoric’ and ‘Sheepdog Trial Inna Babylon.’ Like in much music from the period, there’s genius (of a sort) to be found here… let’s pop this one under ‘cult listen/acquired taste’ shall we?

Rating  7/10:

Taken from http://www.rockpulse.co.uk/friedeggreview.html

MOSKOW
CRESCENT STUDIOS DEMOS
Bristol Archive Records

Here’s a weird one, and it is odd, when you check the biog details and somewhere Dave Luckhurst seems to have vanished, who I know was in the band and should still have been there when these demos were recorded, during November 1978. Also in this picture you will see Trevor Tanner (then Trevor Flynn) and Jan Kalicki, both bound for The Bolshoi.

‘Man From UNCLE’ was always one of my favourites of the perkier post-punk no hit wonders – I still have it somewhere – but here it’s a curiously joyless exercise, brash drums, droll bass and bunged up vocals with a few subdued guitar sprays. ‘Where’s Daddy’ has some very unusual, cheeky lyrics between spells of nimble guitar and certainly keeps you guessing.
“And again fatty…” introduces ‘Dining Is An Emotion’, which does appear weight-related as the constipated song lolls quietly. ‘Name, Rank And Number’ is a drab spot of anti-militaristic tonguery-pokery, and that’s it

Weird.

Taken from www.mickmercer.com

We can confirm that The Cortinas Anthology will be released on Cherry Red Records in the New Year in the form of a double cd.

The album will contain the whole history of the band and include the two Step Forward singles, a John Peel session. the true Romances album for CBS and the two Bristol Archive album, ‘Please Don’t Hit Me’ and ‘For Fucks Sake Plymouth’

We’ll suppy more information on the release date as and when we know 

Best of Fried Egg Records[Bristol 1979-1980]

Bristol Archive Records

Eggs, bacon, sausages and all the trimmings on this brilliant compilation.

Given the fact that this record spans little over a year of output from a small Bristol independent label with a snigger-worthy name, coupled with an irrational scepticism of compilations at the best of times, I consequently wasn’t holding out much hope for The Best of Fried Egg Records. Imagine my surprise then when this turned out to be a wonderful little eye-opener to what sounds like a vivacious, talented and eclectic late 1970s scene.

With too many great tracks to itemise, a few highlights should set the scene. Honourable mention for best lyric goes to the wonderfully sardonic ‘Invasion of the French Boyfriends’ by Shoes for Industry, featuring hilarious, borderline xenophobia such as “smelly cigarettes were hanging limply from their Gallic lips”, whilst the award for most faithful Police and Jam impressions go to The Fans (on ‘Following You’) and The Wild Beasts (chortle) respectively. Meanwhile, the influence on today’s music is virtually omnipresent – for Art Objects’ ‘Hard Objects’ read Art Brut, for The Stingrays’ ‘Exceptions’ read The Drums. Final mention goes to the peerless jangle-pop of best track ‘The Original Mixed Up Kid’ by The Various Artists. And there’s plenty more worth hearing besides. Perhaps most vital to the success of this comp is that the bands seem exude a freshness and naivety often bereft of today’s media and promotion-sanitised output; they just don’t ‘em like this these days. Essential listening.

http://www.bristolarchiverecords.com/archiveRecordLabels/fried_egg_records.html#

4.5/5

Gang of Four, The Jam, The Smiths, Duran Duran, Wire

James Lachno

Taken from Subba Cultcha

After returning back to Bristol in early 86 I started putting together a new recording set-up, which included a few bits of the then new cutting edge ‘midi’ gear. Linn sequencer, Drum machine, DX7 keyboard & a Mirage sampler.

After having gone on a tangent working for other people now felt like the right time to try out some writing.

I remember from the Stonehouse days another fine Bristol band called TVI’s, I had been impressed by their singer & main writer John Kelly. I had briefly played one show with TVI’s back in Oct ’80 at the Berkley Rooms, so I called him up to see if he would be at all interested in a collaboration.

He was and we started working together in early 87.

John handled most of the vocals, I had always enjoyed his voice & he was also a superb lyricist/poet. I was more than happy with this as I was now getting deeper into the production side of things. We wrote quite a number of tracks together, they all started sounded much more cinematic & cerebral with various keyboards & piano featured quite a bit.

We decided to call ourselves ‘White Hotel’ after the infamous D M Thomas book.

Trouble was we took rather a long time getting the ‘right’ demo tape finished & out to people. In-fact we never even got to play one gig together.

When we finally did get the demo tape out we got very good interest from Atlantic Records in NY.

But as with so many record companies they were a bit unsure of jumping straight into a deal.

They decided to fund us for some additional demo tracks to try & convince them.

In the end Atlantic decided not to go for it.

Disappointed we decided to call it a day & move on after having come so close.

Alan Griffiths 2008

White Hotel 1987-1990
John Kelly – Vocals / Keyboard
Alan Griffiths – Vocals / Keys / Vox

Six stunning tracks have been added to www.myspace.com/bristolarchiverecordsuk for your listening pleasure.

You can buy the album from itunes NOW!

Taken from: http://www.whisperinandhollerin.com/reviews/review.asp?id=6574

THE X-CERTS
FUSSING & FIGHTING
Bristol Archive Records

Good Gawd, first I review Europeans, once home of Specimen’s Jon Klein, on this Bristol re-release goldmine label and now it’s X-certs who included Kev Mills. So here we have a band formed in 1978 who lasted three years and regard their highlight ass supporting The Clash in Cardiff. They certainly liked The Clash because opening track ‘Together’ is their positively weedy take on ‘White Man In Hammersmith Palais’ with an anti-authority spine. It jingles and burbles away quite harmlessly, but back then maybe it sounded dead exciting. Now it sounds punky but relaxed and almost cute. I’m surprised they never wrote ‘Guns Of Bristol.’ ‘Queen And Country’ is a chirpy call to no-arms, ‘Visions Of Fate’ more generally life-affirming with hope and determination, like the bubbliness The Cortinas came to provide. ‘Secrets’ gets a bit wishy-washy rocknrolly, but it’s jolly and the loping dub of ‘Stop The Fussing And Fighting’ is equally sweet. This is Punk your gran wouldn’t have minded.

‘Slow Down’ goes more spiky r’n’b than poonk rawk, and is ‘Let’s Dance’ twisted around really. ‘No One Gives’ is a perky bit of fury over society’s lack of caring, and apparently recorded live, which certainly suggests they were pretty classy live even though the lyrics are pretty banal. ‘Youth Is Calling’ is more reggae, like a bloodless Ruts but hey, give them a chance. Oh hang on, it’s pretty much the same through ‘Frustration’, dribbling happily away with choppy guitar and a smooth rhythm, and the singer isn’t bad, just curiously undemonstrative in his style, as though he’s perfectly content while railing against something or other. ‘Together’, still live, did eventually emerge as a single, and we’ve already been there. Ditto ‘Visions Of Fate’, grittier live, with some echo, then we draw the curtains and bemoan the passing of our youth as ‘Untogether’ does a falling downstairs in the tardis dub.

Not a demanding or energising record in any way but you can’t help liking it, it’s just so bloody cheerful, even when supposedly downcast

http://www.xcerts.co.uk
http://www.bristolarchiverecords.com/bands/x-certs.html

Taken from www.mickmercer.com