Fried Egg - Reviews
19/3/81 SMASH HITS RED STARR
Despite their awful name, Bristol based Fried Egg Records continue to be one of the nations better independents. 'Egg-clectic' is a new and reasonably priced sampler album of some of the finer vinyl from the past year or so, featuring twelve tracks from ten artists.
Highlight of the album is undoubtedly the inclusion of both sides of 'Original mixed-up kid'/'Unofficial Secrets' single by Various Artists, the latter being certainly one of the best songs of last year. Best of the rest are the powerful Shoes for Industry and the raw jazz-fumk of Pete Brandt's Method, but the rest - Art Objects, Exploding Seagulls, Wild Beasts, Fans, Stingrays, Untouchables and the Electric Guitars all acquit themselved well enough.
The overall flavour of the music is pretty much modernised mainstream, featuring such old fashioned virtues as good songwriting, good players and good presentation. It may not be startlingly original but its never less than solid. This is excellent value and highly recommended.
30/08/80 NME
ART OBJECTS: HARD OBJECTS (FRIED EGG)
Bristol based Art Objects seem heavily into Raincoats and not smiling and all that, but they've one of tiny handful of worthwhile singles I've heard this week. Hard and full of bitter intelligence.
09/08/80 NME PAUL MORLEY
EXPLODING SEAGULLS: JOHNNY RUNS FOR PARAGORIC
VARIOUS ARTISTS: THE ORIGINAL MIXED UP KID
NME hasn't done much of a service to Bristol's enterprising Fried Egg Records - Various Artists Original mixed-up kid is their ninth. Familiar and sincere, it's a post-Jags beat ballad - which is becoming something of a plight. Exploding Seagulls is bogged down in inanities trying hard to stay on my turntable.
Fried Egg haven't done much of a service to people wanting something a little less obvious.
JAN 1981 OUT WEST
And they're still out there. In previous issues we reported how Fried Egg Records had managed to secure a European tour and set off just before Christmas for a series of dates in and aroud Amsterdam. The bands currently on tour are all Bristol based (Various Artists, Shoes for Industry and The Untouchables), but Shoes, as the oddball Crystal Theatre Group, have always enjoyed much success sue le continent. Their recent album 'Talk like a Whelk' has done particularly well in Germany, so watch out in the near future for collectors items and obscure imports featuring Schehen fur Industrie.
29/11/80 NME ANDY GILL
ART OBJECTS: SHOWING OFF TO IMPRESS THE GIRLS (HEARTBEAT)
VARIOUS ARTISTS: ORIGINAL MIXED UP KID (FRIED EGG)
THE FANS: YOU DON'T LIVE HERE ANY MORE (FRIED EGG)
ESENTIAL BOP: ELOQUENT SOUNDS (MONOPAUSE)
There's more to Bristol, it seems, than just The Pop Group and the Glaxobabies. Art Objects, 'the worlds only poetry dance band' had an excellent first single called 'Hard Objects', which toled along at a furious pace. 'Showing off to impress the girls' is a slower, more tender and sympathetic piece about what really happens at discos. Like the earlier single, it's worth investigating and investing in.
Three of the Art Objects lead a double life with the more straight forward pop group Various Artists. 'The original mixed-up kid' is pleasantly unassuming but nothing special - and has nothing to do with Mott The Hoople. The Fans 'You don't live here any more' is altogether forgettable ungainly pop, but Essential Bop's 'Eloquent Sounds' EP provides further indication of interesting musical activity in progress, though they occasionaly tend to play it too clever for their own good and would profit by somewhat less affected vocals.
