Spining On Zair 'Ead In Ze Street
I've had this wizard wheeze - every time I upload a zip from now on I'm going to include a 'bonus' track that's completely unrelated to the main album, but that appeared on my iPod recently (in shuffle mode) & I thought I'd like to share. These may be - probably are - available on CD so if you like the bonus track please but the album it came from. This idea only occurred to me yesterday so only one of these three albums has a bonus track - but they probably *all* will from now on. So here we go with today's threesome:
Doctor Calculus - Designer Beatnik (1986)
Doctor Calculus was Stephen 'Tintin' Duffy, although I didn't know it at the time. Should have, though - professor Calculus & Tintin...? Anyway, I just heard 'Programme 7' on the John Peel show and then went out and bought the album when I saw it cheap. Very good it is too - this was a time when there was a fair bit of semi-electro stuff with samples and wotever. I filed this (metaphorically) alongside Colourbox's 'Just Give 'Em Whiskey' (see a couple of posts ago). More info about it here.
01 - Blasted With Ecstasy
02 - Programme 7
03 - Moments Of Being (Interlude)
04 - Killed By Poetry
05 - Moments Of Being (Reprise)
06 - Man
07 - Dream Machine
08 - Candy Floss Pink
09 - Just Another Honey
10 - Designer Beatnik
11 - Perfume From Spain
12 - Perfume From Spain (inversion)
13 - Straight To Stereo (tokyo-london)
BONUS TRACK: Jake Thackray - The Brigadier
Download 'Designer Beatnik' by Doctor Calculus
Peter Sarstedt – Every Word You Say (1971)
I guess most everybody knows "Where Do You Go To, My Lovely", and it's a fair representation of Peter Sarstedt's style of singing and songwriting, but how many people know much more about him?
OK, you may know the follow-up 'Frozen Orange Juice' (which I thought was great, and better than WDYGTML), and *maybe* the (once-) infamous 'Take Off Your Clothes' (ooh that was *soo* rude when I was a teenager!), but have you heard anything else?
I have two of his albums, 'As Though It Were A Movie', which is pretty good (but available from Amazon), and this one, which I love. Not sure why, connections with and memories of something at school, whatever.
BTW I upped this before the wizard wheeze of bonus tracks occurred to me - so there isn't one.
01 - Every Word You Say
02 - Down On The Flesh
03 - You're A Lady
04 - Lay Down My Alibi
05 - Let The Music Flow
06 - Taxi Driver
07 - Nexus
08 - Mind Of Man
09 - What Makes One Man Feel
10 - Slow
11 - Stand Outside Ourselves
12 - Politics Is Showbusiness
13 - Rain
Download 'Every Word You Say' by Peter Sarstedt
Terry Reid – Rogue Waves (1979)
Terry Reid has one of *the* great rock voices - in fact, he was Jimmy Page's first choice for vocalist when forming Led Zeppelin.
His 'prime' period was late '60s, when he made 'Bang Bang You're Terry Reid' and 'Terry Reid' for Mickie Most, after which he made two glorious laid back albums for Warners - 'River' and 'Seed Of Memory'. This last was produced by Graham Nash and, in my opinion, is about the only decent thing Nash has ever done outside backing David Crosby. Buy that album and be stunned.
Then Terry Reid went rocky again and made this album. It's not his best - the voice is great, though the arrangements can be a bit OTT - but it still beats most of the other dross that was around at that time (post-punk, pre-anything much else).
BTW I also upped this before the wizard wheeze of bonus tracks occurred to me - so there isn't one here either.
01 - Ain't No Shadow
02 - Baby I Love You
03 - Stop And Think It Over
04 - Rogue Wave
05 - Walk Away Rene
06 - Believe In The Magic
07 - Then I Kissed Her
08 - Bowangi
09 - All I Have To Do Is Dream
posted by Witchseason at 3:55 pm
9 Comments:
Thanks for Dr. Calculus. I'd never heard of that one.
http://mineforlife.blogspot.com
Peter Sarstedt's album is so obscure that I haven't even found a tracklisting for it, until now. Many thanks, I've heard his first two albums and was interested to hear how he continued his career.
You're right; I only know Peter Sarstedt from "Where do you go"
Thanks for this album!
Excellent: I was discussing Dr Calculus with a fellow Lilac Time fanatic recently - it's just about the only Stephen Duffy project neither of us had heard. There have been times I wondered whether the record ever really existed - especially when it was described as, I think, 'techno-oompah'in the Lilac Time write-up in last year's Green Man festival booklet. I'm pleased to discover it's not just an elaborate wind-up and, unlikely as it seems, that description isn't too wide of the mark!
Thanks.
Great post! Nice little write up on Terry Reid. You are so right about "seed of Memory" being a stunning LP. My brother turned me onto it about 5 yrs ago and it quickly became - and remains - one of my top ten of all time. Thanks for Rogue Waves!
20 years ago, my high school girlfriend lent her cassette of "Designer Beatnik" to a classmate who moved away two months later, never to be heard from again. "Don't worry," I said, "We'll find another copy someday..."
Fifteen years of working in record stores (both new and used) led me to think that the record must not have existed. It was all just a figment of her and my collective imagination. The only remnant I had was one track ("Full of Love") on the She's Having A Baby soundtrack. Other than that, Dr. Calculus might as well not have existed.
It turns out that entering the words "doctor calculus blog" into Google every few months wasn't a complete shot in the dark. Of all the records I've sought out in my life, this has proved the most elusive. I've even had my hands on a Beatles "butcher cover" before, and still didn't ever think I'd find this one.
Lacking an actual hard copy, this will more than scratch the itch that I've had for more than half my life. Luckily, I'm still on speaking terms with my high school girlfriend, so I've got some really good news for her. She still asks every few years if I've come across a copy yet.
Thank You
Nice piece on Terry Reid, unfortunately he is so underrated... long live Superlungs!
Thanks for this - I had a cassette copy of this once too which has since gone awol and it's just as great as I remember it.
You can listen to the 7" version of Perfume From Spain on another blog as well - the review is quite interesting too :
http://www.iamnotthebeatles.com/?p=94
Huge thanks for sharing the Dr.Calculus album and rescuing it from the memory hole! To be honest I like most people it seems missed it first time around...given the date 1986, one wonders if the 'ecstasy' reference was about MDMA as by that point it had hit England albeit known to very few (aside from Soft Cell who were singing about it back in 1982!.
I make a point of looking out for 70s/80s albums that never did well originally because sometimes the reason they failed is because they were ahead of their time and an audience had yet to emerge who could sonically grasp it...though 99% of time they failed because they were crap! Luckily the Dr. Calculus album is in the former 1%...an amazing glorious mess!
By the way, for the guy searching half his life for a copy, you can pick a near mint copy for 10 Euros:
http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?release_id=362738&ev=rb
You can also by an MP3 version of the album for less than six quid via Amazon UK (you also get the single tracks as a bonus!):
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Designer-Beatnik/dp/B001I1B36A
Many thanks again for such a wonderful discovery!
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