CD88 - including Crazyhead, Bradford, Sweet Honey In The Rock

Format: Double Vinyl/ Cassette/ CD
Year of Release: 1988

Following on from Volume 5 of the Indie Top 20 series emerging on CD came this - CD88, a compilation of tracks from Volumes 1-5, many of which were being made available on compact disc for the first ever time.

CD88 is a rum entry in the Indie Top 20 catalogue in that Beechwood occasionally relabelled it as "CD88 - The Best of Indie Top 20 Volumes 1-5" on the promotional inner sleeves of their other albums. In truth, I don't know that it is a "Best of" as such - for a start, it features four bonus tracks that appear nowhere else in the series. Rather, I think that Beechwood Music realised that there was a gap in the market for lots of much loved indie obscurities being made available for the first time in a digital format.

The vinyl version was labelled "CD88 - The Vinyl" and the cassette version "CD88 - The Tape", and it was noticeable that neither of these lingered around record store racks for very long, whereas the CD remained an ever-present force in the Indie Compilations section. Indeed, it was actually the first ever CD I bought.

Almost all of these tracks have been reviewed on this blog before, but "CD88" was also the first Indie Top 20 album to include liner notes about each track, provided by either music critics, the bands or the bands record labels/ PR department. I've included them below for reference, and also given a quick sniff of a review to the bonus tracks. If you want to read what I originally said about each track, simply click on the relevant link.

1. All About Eve - Our Summer (Eden)

"Our Summer" - the living testament to our sparking the fire of peace and love in the '80s, which we now know as Acid-Folk... can you feel it?" - quote from the band.

2. Cardiacs - Is This The Life (Alphabet Business Concern)

"This single was taken from the Cardiacs successful album 'A Little Man and A House and The Whole World Window'. It stayed in the Indie Charts for 4 months and 'crossed-over' to daytime Radio 1, subsequently entering the Gallup Top 100"

3. Fields of the Nephilim - Preacher Man (Situation Two)

"Albums available: 'Dawnrazor' '...shudders with self-important, bristling energy: an epic, an unashamedly slavering colossus of a disc' - Sounds, 16.5.88
'The Nephilim' '...is fascinating, disturbing, and utterly magnificent' - Record Mirror, 3.9.88

4. Danielle Dax - Cathouse (Awesome)

"Unanimously voted Single of the Week by the nation's music press, this number one indie-seller turns rock, pop and glam into a unique blend of sex, metal and mayhem for the 80s, proving beyond doubt that when it comes to 'Guitar Wars' Dax leaves those leather boys gasping at the starting line".

5. Crazyhead - Baby Turpentine (Food) - Bonus Track

"Flat 2, 37 Springfield Road, Leicester, 1986 - chopping down next door's fence to keep warm in front of the epileptic television."

Here's the first bonus track out of the bag. "Baby Turpentine" pretty much picks up where "What Gives You The Idea..." left off on Volume Two, making an unholy racket about nothing in particular. The guitars make an old school rock and roll row (dig that descending and rising fifties double bass styled bassline) the vocals scream, and it sounds like full-on garage rock with a slightly hairy eighties twist.

Given that groups making this sort of noise are all over the Internet these days, it might feel faintly peculiar to remember that we really did get quite excited about this at the time. What innocent days.

As stated on the other entry where we mention this bunch of unmentionables, Crazyhead's subsequent career on EMI was something of a flop, and they quite quickly fell out of relevance, but not before throttling us from both our stereos and from blazing live performances on the gig circuit.



6. The Wedding Present - Nobody's Twisting Your Arm (Reception)

"...surprised everyone by shooting into the Gallup chart at no. 46 and showed that the 'George Best' LP was no fluke".

7. The Soup Dragons - Hang Ten! (Raw TV)

"...became an absolute classic Indie hit single, staying at Number one in the Indie Charts for weeks. Taken from the album 'This Is Our Art'".

8. Rose of Avalanche - Velveteen (Fire)

"The pulsating twilight world of teardrops, mist and mystery, bad company and the illicit thrill of good lovin' gone bad mixed with guitars turned up full blast, all transport you to the furthest edges of the psychedelic firmament in a song that'll take you to heaven and back with the most beautiful girl in the world beside you."

9. Half Man Half Biscuit - Dickie Davies Eyes (Probe Plus)

"Two years on and the jokes and the punchlines are entirely familiar but somehow, like Monty Python, it's the sort of inspired, satirical humour that bears repeating time and time again without losing it's edge and appeal. Poking fun at TV 'celebrities', bringing inner city problems to 'Watch With Mother', extracting the urine from all and sundry (themselves included) with all the dry wit for which Merseyside is so justly famous". Q - September '88.

10. Michelle Shocked - Fog Town (Cooking Vinyl) - Bonus Track

"Taken from the now legendary 'Texas Campfire Tapes' LP which shot to number one on the indie charts in January '87, despite being recorded on a Walkman at Kerrville festival by Cooking Vinyl boss Pete Lawrence for the cost of a tape and a set of batteries".

You know what, readers, I can't find an audio link for this one online, and since Michelle Shocked seems to control her presence online quite tightly, I'm not going to bother to risk incurring her wrath by uploading anything myself. You know how it is. And also, I respect her desire as an artist and creative force to maintain control over her own affairs without the interference from external etc. etc. etc....

If you're curious, "Fog Town" is inevitably a very stripped back, acoustic live track, which struts along moodily and has a claustrophobic, despairing air throughout. Rather like "If Love Was A Train" on volume two, there's an earnestness and worthiness to this which will either repel or appeal to listeners. Certainly at the time, it felt as if her work and presence was a refreshing antidote to the over-produced luxury of eighties pop - in these days where talented acoustic performers can be found at every open mic night in just about every town, however, some of that novelty has perhaps diminished.

11. The Chesterfields - Ask Johnny Dee (Subway)

"...is still the most appealing slither of sublimeness, it remains a mystery why someone didn't write it aeons ago" - Record Mirror.

12. Wire - Kidney Bingos (Mute)

"Wire specialise in wistful, immaculately crafted avant-songs... it's good to know that Wire have lost none of their taste for the lyrically absurd or their talent for a jolly little tune. The single 'Kidney Bingos' consisted of a string of nonsense-words (although it was probably meant to be rather meaningful) and the album continues in this merry vein" - Record Mirror.

13. Bradford - Skin Storm (Village) - Bonus Track

"This track was the single; receiving a great deal of media interest as Morrissey was quoted as saying of their 'Lust Roulette' track: 'Lust Roulette practically almost made me cry" - Morrissey, Summer '88.

The curse of Morrissey strikes again. With an almost tedious inevitability, every artist the bequiffed one recommends inevitably suffers the near total indifference of the general public, and Bradford, while briefly tipped for success, were no exception.

That's actually a pity, as he had a bit of a point in this case. Mixing soulful vocals with considered and frequently touching lyrics and delicate indie arrangements, Bradford could be a stunning listen when on form. "Skin Storm" really is an example of the band at their peak, a scaling ballad which really could be covered by just about any mainstream pop star or folk performer and still sound affecting - to the extent that I'm surprised it hasn't been.

Still, Morrissey had a stab at it later on on the flipside of "Pregnant For The Last Time". Bradford themselves signed to Sire before being dropped by that label. They then moved to Stephen Street's Foundation label, but success continually eluded them, and the plug was pulled in the early nineties.



14. Sweet Honey In The Rock - Chile Your Waters Run Red Through Soweto (Cooking Vinyl) - Bonus Track

"This five piece all female accapella outfit from Washington DC deliver the goods on this powerful live recording taken from the album 'Breaths... The Best Of' which rode high in various independent charts in Autumn '87. Billy Bragg has also recently covered this track on his LP".

This may well have ridden high in numerous independent charts, but really, I'm sure a great many folk, jazz and reggae albums also had their moment in the sun there - they never appeared on Indie Top 20, so why did this, a gospel track? Only Chet and Bee know.

"Chile Your Waters..." is an a-cappella track which spits out words like "oppression" a lot, and sounds exactly as you'd expect it to. There's a meanness and a definite vitriol to this one despite the limited arrangement, and it's impossible to doubt its righteousness and passion, but it sinks in immediately and definitely on the first listen, and return visits pay very few extra dividends.

Sweet Honey In The Rock remain much loved in the USA, being awarded at the Grammys and generously given a great deal of airtime elsewhere. They are also probably one of the only bands to have a sign language interpreter as a member. At the point of its release, their "Best Of" probably seemed unusual and refreshing in the UK - but really, the group are an institution at home, where they're among the absolute leaders of their genre. Their inclusion on "Indie Top 20" is as absurd as sticking a Miles Davis or Johnny Cash track halfway through.



15. A Certain Ratio - Mickey Way (The Candy Bar) (Factory)

"Taken from their album 'Force", 'Mickey Way' was ACR's last release before leaving Factory Records. Now signed to A&M worldwide, the next album is planned for release early in '89". 

16. Ciccone Youth - Into The Groovy (Blast First)

"...also known as Sonic Youth, in their most rabid Madonna worship frenzy. 'Into The Groovy' was a surprise club and chart hit, it featured Firehose's Mike Watts on frantic bass. 'Into The Groovy' is included on a Ciccone Youth album called The White(y) Album, due for release Jan '89".

17. The Beloved - Forever Dancing (Flim Flam)

"Seriously minimal, minimally serious. Free at last".

18. The Shamen - Jesus Loves Amerika (Moksha)

"...is a blistering attack on that country's fascist, fanatical, fundamentalist "Christians" - ie - those who wish to transform us into a race of right-wing, brain-dead, bible quoting robots.
Musically, the beatbox groove is harder than ever before, overlaid with frenzied, psychedelic mandolin-like guitar and some of the most righteous samples yet to be heard on disc".

19. Pop Will Eat Itself - There Is No Love Between Us Anymore (Chapter 22)

"The Poppies present another song about love and hate. Remixed from their debut album 'Box Fenzy'. Still available in all good and not so good record shops".

Indie Top 20 Volume 2 - Side One (Crazyhead, PWEI, Three Wise Men, Renegade Soundwave, Bambi Slam)

Indie Top 20 Volume II
Formats: Double Vinyl and Cassette

After the success of the cassette-only Volume one, a decision was clearly taken to join the adult music world and produce Volume two on both double cassette and double vinyl formats (no CDs were being issued yet, but as Now! and Hits were only just starting to get to grips with that format themselves, it's slightly silly to expect Indie Top 20 to have joined the digital audio revolution this early). The double cassette version - which I've never seen in the wild, but that's probably because I was never really looking for it - also came emblazoned with Melody Maker sponsorship across its sleeve, creating a partnership between the series and the IPC music magazine. The connection would become more cemented over the next few LPs.

Other than that, this slipped out on Clive Selwood's Band of Joy label in 1987, much like Volume One, but in terms of track selection shows a slight widening of variety. Indiepop remains very well represented, but also lurking in the grooves on offer here is British Hip-Hop, House music and Folk, and even - unexpectedly for an album so early in the series - arguably the earliest rumblings of the Indie Dance crossover. It still lacks the diversity of a Now or Hits compilation, but is less guitar orientated than you might initially expect.

It's also actually a very solid compilation, with not a single outright stinker in sight, and acts as a far better and more honest barometer of the independent music scene at this point in its history than many Double CD retrospectives and box sets which have emerged in more recent years. The simple truth is that while early Indiepop often sought to charm with its naiveté and amateurism, the more they gigged and recorded, the tighter most of the bands got, especially with their songwriting. For me personally, many of the bands who emerged from C86 and the numerous fanzine and gig networks in the mid eighties really found their feet and realised their potential in 1987. Suddenly, now they were under the media spotlight, the game got upped and some seriously good (and even great) singles emerged. But hey, if you'd prefer to listen to your early flexidiscs, don't let me stop you. It's all a matter of taste.

Let's pop the needle down on to the groove of side one, shall we?



1. Crazyhead - What Gives You The Idea That You're So Amazing Baby? (Food)

Side One of this compilation is uncharacteristically brutal, actually, and opens with Leicester's great Grebo hopes Crazyhead. Snapped up by David Balfe's (of Teardrop Explodes fame) Food label shortly before that very label ran to EMI for major label cash and distribution, Crazyhead were much feted at the time. Indeed, it's easy to hear that their cross-appeal was likely to be immense. One of the few groups of the period to confidently sit on both the Indie and Heavy Metal specialist charts without complaints from either parties, they played a raucous, rapid and noisy eighties approximation of garage punk, of which "What Gives You The Idea...?" is a fairly typical example. It's brash and dumb but FUN with it - and its inclusion here, track one side one, is indicative of the fact that it was a cult indie hit of some stature, climbing to number two on the specialist chart.

Crazyhead never did achieve mainstream chart success, however, and by 1989 they had been dumped by Food Records and ejected straight back into indie-land again, where they never really made the same kind of waves again.

While we're on the subject, there's probably a bigger debate to be had about whether Grebo was a genuine youth movement, a music press invention, a gang of predominantly Midlands groups who all just happened to be scruffs and all knew each other, or some combination of all three. Footage of the gigs these bands played during the period does show an army of fans dressed in combat gear and denim, some with greasy locks and partly shaved hair, but it's highly unlikely that any of them would have identified themselves as being part of a youth movement (most of the music was too bloody sardonic and silly to base your entire life around - Grebo probably wouldn't have come with many rules attached apart from "get pissed on Scrumpy"). Nor is it necessarily easy to create a clear line from the sound Crazyhead made, to Pop Will Eat Itself's beatbox obsessions, to the downright berserk Gaye Bykers On Acid. What most of those groups do have in common, however, is that they were so lacking in glamour that the Britpop era indie music press more-or-less tipp-exed over their contributions.



2. Pop Will Eat Itself - Love Missile F1-11 (Chapter 22)

Fellow Grebos Pop Will Eat Itself emerge here in a slightly different form from when we last met them on Volume One. While the metamorphosis from scratchy, treble-heavy indie-punk to an alternative British take on Rick Rubin produced Hip-Hop wasn't complete, the boys do rap for one segment of this track, and point the way for their future recordings.

This was an interesting choice of cover version for the Poppies as well. Sigue Sigue Sputnik's "Love Missile F1-11" had only been released the year before, and the group's attempt at cyber-futuristic rock and roll was largely savaged by the music press (and also public) who weren't willing to accept the record company hype. Pop Will Eat Itself actually beef up the original - which always was an unusually stark and minimal top ten hit - and plug the gaps with loud, thrashed guitars and a chugging riff where you would expect the electro loops to be. Whether you feel it sounds better for the treatment or not depends upon your feelings on Sigue Sigue Sputnik, but it was certainly a large indie hit.



3. Three Wise Men - Refresh Yourself (Rhythm King)

British Hip-Hop acts struggled horribly to make the same waves as their American counterparts in the eighties (and actually nineties as well) never really generating the same amount of sales, press or media exposure. The very idea of rappers having regional British accents was actually outright mocked during this period, and Hip-Hop artists in the UK found themselves having to confront the same prejudices that British Rock and Rollers had in the fifties.

Unlike many of the fifties artists, however, most British Hip-Hop acts were usually smart enough to realise that there was no point in adopting American accents and slang. The only way forward was to forge their own identity and talk about their own lives - and Three Wise Men certainly did that with "Urban Hell", a largely-forgotten 1986 single about the since-demolished North Peckham estate in London.

"Refresh Yourself" is an entirely different single, obviously, and perhaps less representative of their sound. Minimal sounding and lyrically simplistic, it's probably one of their most dated sounding pieces of work. For whatever reason, for the three years they were active the group only had three singles and one LP put out on Rhythm King records, after which time was called.


4. Renegade Soundwave - Kray Twins (Rhythm King)

Renegade Soundwave were also signed to Rhythm King to produce their own multi-faceted brand of electronic dance music, but eventually ended up moving to the parent label Mute after a series of "artistic" disputes.

"Kray Twins" hints at just how Rhythm King might have found them totally out-of-sorts with the rest of their roster. It's a seriously rambling, aggressive, frantic piece of work, taking in harsh, punchy, in-your-face samples, burbling electronic noises, sneering cockney vocals, and the periodic emergence of thrashed guitars. Despite the fact that the techniques used to create this single must have been absurdly primitive by today's standards, it actually doesn't sound dated in the slightest - elements even sound close to the minimal rantings of Sleaford Mods, admittedly without the political nous.

Then again, nor is "Kray Twins" necessarily representative of the rest of Renegade Soundwave's work. They would produce a lot of varied material throughout their careers, from the threatening chaos of this track to the pop suss of "Probably a Robbery", and the House dancefloor hit "The Phantom". They would probably be more at home on one of the many Dance compilations that littered the eighties, but future appearances on "Indie Top 20" also occurred. Long before the label "Indie-Dance" was thought of, Renegade Soundwave were probably one of the few true crossover artists of the mid-eighties period.



5. Bambi Slam - Don't It Make You Feel (Product Inc.)

Roy Slam, the lead singer of Bambi Slam (naturally) was a Canadian ex-pat who formed the group on British shores, in the process creating a band with - at the time, at least - an unusual array of influences. There's a clear American underground punk sound leaking through a lot of their work, but also beatbox loops and poppy hooks, combining to create a brew which sounds particularly of its indie moment.

"Don't It Make You Feel" is rough and ready, but melodically sounds as if it could have been written by a successful glam rock band in 1973 - almost everything about the track is catchy and insistent, like a past pop smash being dragged through a cheap recording studio by punk musicians.

The group generated plenty of excitement and became big enough news to be signed to Warner Brothers who released one LP of theirs, the eponymous "Bambi Slam" in 1988. By that time, however, everyone seemed to have lost interest and they were pushed aside in favour of the next trend.