The first release from the new label run by Boy George. "Attitude,style and balls.one of melody makers tip for the top.a total unknown artist but this is pure quality" - so said the Rough Trade update that enticed me to order this for us. To me it sounds like Ian Hunter singing in the same style he used on 1974's "The Hoople" record by Mott The Hoople. On this song it sounds like Ian Hunter singing after listening to Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel (1974 was a great year for that band, though they never knew the success that Mott The Hoople did). The song riff bears a resemblence to Rolling Stones "Let It Bleed". The single has the same song on both sides, just the A-side is edited down to length should Radio 1 wish to pick it up. This single is actually pretty good. I'll be curious to see how they follow it up. This unknown band has a lot of the cards from the deck right in their hand. I'll be curious to see how they play them.

The A-side is so immediate. I hear Freddie Mercury singing the Beach Boy's "I Can Hear Music" (from the great early Queen compilation "Queen In Nuce", which also includes Earth & Larry Lurex recordings), and the vocals of Pete Wylie from the great first few 7"s by Wah! (or Wah! Heat, as they called themselves in the beginning) as I listen to this song. The song in question ("The Biggest Horizon") is good: much better to my ears than Clint's earlier band The Inspiral Carpets. The B-side is a bit slower, with a bit of Brazilian feel to it in a High Llamas way. This is now WZBC's third single by him ("White No Sugar" was added Dec. 21 1999 , and "Who Says Time Waits For No One" was added Oct. 5 1999 )

Compilation of their stuff: 23 songs in 40 minutes. The title of the comp refers to these all being songs from 45's (7"s) and the band being a trio (CJ, Lorca, & Kieth). Pretty impossible to not like. They have a Mod beat, punk energy, garage attitude, and a Hot Rod driving Fab Gear outlook. Anyone who likes Thee Headcoats had better shoot this disc into their box - you'll be shorting yourself of a quality thrill if you don't. This is one case where the UK doesn't have all the goods on us here in the US. Some of the stuff ,such as "Slicks Livin It Up (on the bottom of the sea)", sounds as wild-crazy as Scotland's Big Flame did in '86.

The Pickled Egg Records insert (which describes their releases in single sentence glory) tags this single as "More Francophile space pop, by way of Edinburgh. Blame Air!" Vocals are in French. I like the A-side more than the B as it moves better. The B is drumless, with acoustic guitar, some mellowtron weaving, and his vocal sung in a near whisper. The A has a single note plucked by him on his steel stringed acoustic guitar throughout as he sings. A shuffling beat lazes along, the mellowtron providing the bass-like beat, the vocal the centerpiece. It works: great! Nice song.

Leicesters a happening place with labels like Fortuna Pop!, Pickled Egg, Tube Bar, and Sorted calling it home, and bands like Prolapse, John Sims, Dalmation Rex & The Eigentones, Beatglider, & Discordia residing there. This is Mogul's (a London band) first 7" for the label, and it is super. The A-side is really a gem, with funny lyrics and a good tune, and the 3 B-sides round it out nicely. "2 Little 2 Late" really rocks and almost sounds like a Billy Childish Thee Headcoats song if Billy added electronics to his arsenal in the same way Supercute do. Rough Trade sez: "brum based teen riot synth duo.classic electropop with hints of pulp or denim". The "Tesco's" song is talking about a UK store chain kind of like the US's Marshalls stores, but with a food section as well. It is very popular as a lunchtime prepackaged sandwich n' soda place. The song's protagonist "scarf's down a packet of Doritos" (without paying) then challenges "catch me if you can, security man". Not the kind of talk our sponsor Newbury Comics would have us singing! They might soften up when they heard how good the song is, though. NME loved it too, giving it a very favorable review in the January 29th issue. On the B-side, the first song ("Precinct") is casiopop that uses the bassline from "Love Potion #9" as played by the Beatles. It is a pleasnat enough song, but is the least distinctive of the 4 songs on this platter. The second song ("2 Little 2 Late") really rocks and ups the ante of the whole EP by it's presence. The closing song ("Just Look At You Now") has swagger and sass like The Only Ones crossed with Supercute.

A novelty single no doubt, but a pretty great one. P.S. I Love You have a full length coming out on Rocket Girl, so you can be sure this is not a one-off. The music is really good, and the song concept goofs on the "Where On Earth Is Carmen SanDiego" cartoon. In real life, where Kevin Shields (the elusive svengali of My Bloody Valentine) is can be found on Dot Allison's "Afterglow" CD where he appears on several songs, and on the new Primal Sceam full length "Exterminator" - the last ever release on the label Creation Records. He is a new full time member of Primal Scream, playing on the record dubbed by Newbury Comic's Dave Egan (manager of the Govt. Center location store) to be "as revolutionary as the first PIL album". Label founder Alan McGee has already started his new label "PopTones", which will release records by Lee 'Scratch' Perry, El Vez, Mad Professor, Alex Lowe, and Lawrence Felt.

Post-Teengenerate band. Kicks Ass. Very hard to find. Came out early 1999. Teengenerate were a garage punk band from Japan who had a lot of success all over the world. This record is really quite good. Despite the title, the recordings don't sound anything like demos. They have as good recoding as anything on the first few Ramones records, which seems to be a good reference point for the music too. Like a Japanese male BobbyTeens (who I happen to like a lot).

For years I've been reading about Red Sleeping Beauty, but have never seen their records to listen to. This week Newbury Comics got 2 releases from them on Siesta Records. This release seemed the logical one to get first as it is a 21 song compilation of all their singles. The other CD is a 6 song EP for only two dollars less. The 2 CD's are numbered consecutively in the Siesta catalog and have no overlapping songs, so we will get the EP next week probably. The music is a bit 'indiepop' and a bit 'twee'. There are male and female vocals, pianos, tambourines, and other embellishments besides the requisite guitar, drums, and bass. As is usually the case with bands, it's the songs that make the difference. Red Sleeping Beauty have some fine ones. Some of the songs have the ladled on reverb sound that The Cat's Miaow use to such great effect, some use "ba-ba-ba's" or "do-do-do" in the fine tradition of easypop.

"Preceding Jo Zimmermann's next album for A-Musik is this entertaining limited 7" (early mixes of tracks that may appear on that album). An unconventional 2 tracker with that comfortable Schlammpeitziger atmosphere with friendly keyboard melodies, soft beats and rhythms. There's some pretty confounding usage of 'consumer-grade' electronic accompaniment devices and channel-clipping reverb-drench resulting in an approximation of some entity interrupting the solo travels of both 'Lounge/Exotica' & 'Psychedelic Electronica'. An unconventional, yet accessible sound-cosmos. Reminds you of the construction of really classic era Cluster works imbued with the shifting electronic perspective of Zimmermann's contemporaries, Mouse on Mars." -- Hrvatski (from the Forced Exposure updates). I asked a native German for help with the whopping mouthful that the band name and song titles give us. His response?: "This means actually nothing! Or at least I can't make anything of it. -Schlamm = mud, Peitziger = ?????, Rest = rest, Wasser = water, Streit = quarrel, Gebettel = pleading, Hacksel = shreds, Harfen = harps, Aufu = ????? (spelling?) In fact this reminds me of songtitles of Krautrock bands which at times were meaningless combinations of nouns" - Jorg Winzer My take on the whole thing? I like the A-side a lot. It has the same feel as Isan, Magnetophone, Ted & Ray, or most of the artists with singles on Static Caravan. I'm not as crazy about the B-side. It is a lot more nervous and jarring than the A.