Barney Bubbles Tunes 1977-84

In 1977, Barney Bubbles created some revolutionary covers and saw him paying respect to constructivist and modernist imagery with stunning original results for Stiff Records.
Barney had a long artistic relationship with Ian Dury, designing various classic sleeves for both his singles and albums.
The most famous of his LP covers for Dury and the Blockheads was probably 1979’s Do It Yourself, which was released with 36 cover variations based on Crown Wallpaper! 
His most prolific work was probably done for Elvis Costello’s releases, as he followed Costello & Nick Lowe from Stiff to Radar to F-Beat Records.
Even so, his work was not confined to those 3 labels as he was also active for Chiswick, Epic, a.m.o.
Barney had a very strong work discipline and took his assignments seriously, whether he could relate to the music or not.
Unfortunately, his private life was a rather different story (bipolar disorder and continuous financial problems didn’t help), and he took his own life in mid-November 1983... 

Barney at times had disagreements with both record companies (especially for the US market!) and artists, e.g. Dave Edmunds wasn’t pleased at all with the back cover of his Tracks On Wax 4 album... 

Even so, Barney’s design for Edmunds’ Twangin’ redeemed him completely!
The amount of work he produced was staggering, and this compilation only shows you the tip of the musical iceberg.

I’ve done my best to present either an album or a single cover of each song represented here, and the 35-page PDF also gives more details about Barney's influences.

As quite a few of the punk/new wave period Bubbles-related songs were already included in my previous Radar and F-Beat Records posts, I opted for some more obscure music, e.g. The Imperial Pompadours (Barney’s own band!), Elvis Costello in disguise, Laurie Latham’s band The Vampire Bats From Lewisham, and a Roger Chapman vinyl-only dub!
Besides the above, 1977-84 also features :
Ian Dury And The Music Students  / Generation X / Graham Parker / Mick Farren & The Deviants / The Adverts / Big Star / Humphrey Ocean's Iron Hoof / Nik Turner's Sphynx / Whirlwind / The Sinceros / Clive Langer And The Boxes / Chas Jankel / The Inmates / The Damned /  Dr. Feelgood / Inner City Unit / The Psychedelic Furs / Amazulu / Billy Bragg / Mercy Ray / Wang Chung 

The 2 volumes (which easily could have been 3, volume 1 posted yesterday for the 500niversary!) here give an adequate overview, covering prog-rock, space-rock, folk, pub-rock, country-rock, punk, funk, new wave, rockabilly, and more, enjoy! 

Roger Béchirian - Engineer/Mixer/Producer

One of the fun things (for me, at least) about reading music/design books is gaining more insight into the entire process of recording music, from start to finish. And along the way, discovering new / forgotten artists and groups as well!
Although Barney Bubbles’ Wild World lacks a list of all the sleeves he designed or was involved in, it still showed me a few names I had never heard of…
One of those was Roger Béchirian, for whom Barney had come with a wonderful cover design based on Alex Steinweiss’ sleeves from the 1950s.
This graced a promo album called The Art of Roger Béchirian Vol. 1, released by F-Beat in 1982, which apparently was given away as a special Christmas present that year!
It contained 35 ‘snippets’ of songs on which Roger had a part in…
A quick search revealed that Roger is a well-known producer who has worked with several key artists that keep popping up here on Jokonky, plus quite a few obscure ones!
The liner notes of the album read as follows: 

Welcome to the art of Roger Bechirian, a track-by-track guided tour through his career as producer of countless commercial successes and musically satisfying moments. All the artistes represented on this record have benefitted from Roger's deft hand at the controls, as on hits by Lene Lovich, The Undertones, The Photos, The Rumour, Squeeze, a.o.
Side two contains a varied selection of Roger's work, demonstrating his ability to produce top results over a wide and diverse range of musical styles: Elvis Costello, The dB’s, Dirty Looks, The Blues Band, Shakin’ Pyramids, a.o.
We trust that you will enjoy listening to this brief sampling of Roger's work. We would like to thank all the record companies involved for the loan of these snippets. 

Yup, 15 different record companies were involved in this project!

Unnecessary to say that this album was never re-released in any form...

A bit of background, Roger was born in India but moved with his family to England when he was ten. He started developing his skills by editing music recorded from the TV! After taking college classes in electronics, he began working at a four-track recording studio in 1972.
Roger met Stiff Records founders Jake Rivera and Dave Robinson in 1974 and began mixing songs for the label. He slowly evolved into a producer, but also performed as a musician, being a member of Blanket of Secrecy!

As I began working on this project, I decided to stick to just one song of each artist/group in order to give a better overview of Roger’s work.
This enabled me to include some later songs as well, from after 1982.
The resulting compilation includes 24 songs ranging from 1979 to 1987, focusing on singles releases only.

By the way, in case you’re wondering, Roger is still active as a producer and a fun interviewee, check it out here. He has some great stories to tell about his work with Elvis, Nick, Dave, The Monkees, and even The Sex Pistols!

F-Beat Records 1980 - 1986

In last week’s post, I described how Jake Riviera had moved from Stiff to Radar Records and taking Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, and others with him.  However Radar didn’t last long, just 2 years (I don’t count the short revival during the mid-90s) and Jake moved on…

This time together with Andrew Lauder to start F-Beat Records which released quite a lot of albums and singles in their 6 year lifespan.
Unlike Radar though their number of artists was relatively small: Nick Lowe, Carlene Carter, the Blasters, Blanket of Secrecy, and a few others.  The album and single sleeves were mostly designed by Barney Bubbles.   

In 1986 Jake pulled out the plug of F-Beat and some of its artists ended up on Demon Records.  Similar to Radar, no ‘Best of F-Beat’ ever materialized, therefore once again Jokonky stepped in, and our 28 track promo compilation includes:

Rockpile
Nick Lowe & Dave Edmunds
Nick Lowe
Kenny Pickett
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
The Coward Brothers
The Costello Show Featuring The Attractions
The Costello Show Featuring Confederates
Clive Langer & The Boxes
Carlene Carter & Paul Carrack
Carlene Carter & Dave Edmunds
Carlene Carter
The Blasters
Blanket Of Secrecy
Steve Nieve
The Attractions
 
Enjoy!

Radar Records Singles 1978-79

After my Howard Werth post I finally bought The Wild World Of Barney Bubbles, an absolutely fabulous treasure trove of his designs and paintings. He was miles ahead of others during that time, great to read about his influences and concepts.  It also provided a lot of insight of the music scene in those days and the groups/musicians he was close with; Hawkwind, Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, Nick Lowe, Billy Bragg, a.m.o.

Special mention must be made for Jake Riviera as ‘mover & shaker’, a British music business entrepreneur, manager of Costello and Lowe, and co-founder (with Dave Robinson) of Stiff Records.  He was a firm supporter of Barney and in 1977 recruited Bubbles to work with him on an impressive run of designs for record sleeves, posters, badges and advertising and promotional campaigns for Lowe, The Damned, Costello and such performers as Ian Dury, Wreckless Eric and the veteran music hall star Max Wall.

However later that same year Riviera left Stiff, taking with him Barney, Costello and Lowe to the newly launched label Radar Records.  Nick Lowe’s Breaking Glass was the first Radar 45 release and a hit for the new label.  Barney had designed both the Radar Label’s logo and the sleeve for Nick’s hit!

Radar lasted only 2 years before Riviera moved on, again taking key artists and Barney with him, to another new label… But during those 2 years Radar released a lot of good music, besides Costello and Lowe, there were also excellent records by Bram Tchaikovsky, Inmates, 999, Yachts, The Pop Group, a.o.

Several of Radar's early releases (including Iggy Pop and James Williamson's Kill City, the Good Rats' From Rats to Riches and Pezband's Laughing in the Dark) were licensed from independent American labels. 

After reading and thinking about the above I suddenly realized something odd! During my vinyl buying days in the previous century I bought quite a few Stiff and Radar singles, extended plays, and albums. I have good memories of the various Stiff artists compilations (later CDs as well), and downloaded Stiff collections from different blogs, etc. But I never bought a various Radar artists album/CD or found a digital collection online.   

This is because strangely enough Radar never released any such compilation... 

As for why nobody ever considered putting a digital collection together, that's anyone's guess...  Therefore Jokonky proudly announces the arrival of the Radar Records Singles 1978-79 compilation!

Despite the fact that virtually all of regular visitors are probably familiar with Lowe & Costello, I still felt that I had to include them. A perfect candidate was the Nick Lowe single I bought back in 1978: A side - American Squirm with on the B What’s So Funny ‘Bout (Peace, Love and Understanding) by Nick Lowe And His Sound which turned out to be Elvis Costello!

Besides the earlier mentioned Radar artists and groups, there are also: Bette Bright And The Illuminations, Metal Urbain, Neon, Ray Campi (licensed from Rollin’ Rock!), The Red Crayola, The Soft Boys, Sussex, Tanz Der Youth, The Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Visage, and Wayne Kramer.

Song Book Dury - Jankel

You wandered in upon my life
And haven't lost me yet
Said the turkey to the carving knife:
"What you give is what you get"
A fresh and lovely summer's day
We thought would never end
Said the bloodhound to the stag at bay:
"I thought you were my friend"

Glad To Know You (Chaz Jankel - Ian Dury)

After the Chaz Jankel post I decided to have a look at some of the songs he wrote with Ian Dury and that turned out to be very rewarding. Whereas the first collaborations of New Boots and Panties!! showed a clear division between words (Dury) and music (Jankel), this later became more ‘blurred’, especially with the non-Blockheads songs.

That first album has been rightly acknowledged as a classic and received a full cover treatment in 2001 as Brand New Boots And Panties: A Tribute To Ian Dury.  As far as tributes go, it’s definitely one of the better ones, but as this album is still easily available, I decided to ignore those covers. Instead, I plunged into a digital rabbit hole looking for obscure covers and forgotten Dury-Jankel compositions… The results were not bad, enough for an 18 song CD Song Book! It has to be said though that the focus is really on the first 2 Blockheads albums, plus a few songs that Dury and Jankel wrote for others.

As expected, covers of Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, Sex & Drugs & Rock'n'Roll, and Wake Up And Make Love With Me are plenty, but I think I managed to select some of the more intriguing ones. Perhaps not surprising, everybody’s favorite Spasticus Autisticus gets seldom covered, but I found a decent one. The other Blockheads compositions include: What a Waste, Inbetweenies, and Lullaby For Frances.

Probably best known as the lead vocalist on Freeez’s classic hit single Southern Freeez, Ingrid Mansfield Allman was also involved in Ian Dury’s life. This resulted in a one-off single: The Jam Jar Song / Stop Wasting Your Time, both written by Dury-Jankel, released in 1981! Two years later Chaz recorded Stop Wasting Your Time again, but this time with a singer named Kitty Grant.  And the B-side was a cover of Glad To Know You from Jankel’s solo album Chasanova / Questionnaire!

As for this particular Song Book the lyrics of the songs are way above average I decided to include them all, but the covers do include 3 instrumentals as well! Special thanks to my friend The Dishonorable Edward Pastanga who helped me out with transcribing the lyrics of The Jam Jar Song / Stop Wasting Your Time.  Being British helps a lot I guess ;-)

Like with many songs most parts are easy enough to follow, but sometimes… Using youtube to text didn’t help much, these skipped the same parts I didn’t catch. Weirdest experience was using Grok, who replied correctly that those 2 songs are not on any lyrics site, but suggested me to add a youtube link which would enable it to transcribe those lyrics.  So I did and a few seconds later got the results, which were … interesting, apart from the title Stop Wasting Your Time, everything else was totally different! However I could see that those new lyrics followed the main melody…

Note that other covers can be found on the Stiff Records posts here!

p.s. In hindsight The Jam Jar Song would have been perfect for any of my previous car posts…

THE BEST OF DANNY ADLER VOLUME 1 - Essential Reading For Elvis Costello Fans!

THE BEST OF DANNY ADLER VOLUME 1

How has it taken me this long to pay tribute to one of my favorites; guitarist, singer, & songwriter DANNY ADLER?

Adler was an original member of Rocket 88 with The Rolling Stones’ Charlie Watts & Ian Stewart, Alexis Korner, & Cream’s Jack Bruce.  He later formed The Deluxe Blues Band with Fleetwood Mac bassist Bob Brunning, & drummer Micky Waller (Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart).  He was even briefly in Elephant’s Memory in 1971 (pre-John & Yoko).  Added to the now long-running partnership of Dave Edmunds & Nick Lowe, Adler briefly made their number uneven as a member of The Disco Brothers.  While they didn’t record, the fourth track here--a bluesier take on Fool Too Long (a staple on Edmunds & Lowe's setlists with Rockpile) gives a glimpse of what they must have sounded like.

Adler paid his dues in black blues clubs, but he also loved jazz, R&B, & rock, and easily plays it all.  I’ll always be grateful that he penned the immortal words: “Cincinnati Fatback, Cincinnati Fatback, that ass kickin' finger lickin' chicken pickin' Cincinnati Fatback.”  It’s easily one of the songs I’d take to a desert island—one I never get tired of—with one of the funkiest grooves ever.  In it, he pays tribute to the fellow Cincinnatians Adler watched & often played with; Hank Ballard, James Brown, “Cleanhead” Vinson, Amos Milburn, Wynonie Harris, H-Bomb Ferguson, Beau Dollar, Lonnie Mack, O.D. Bell & Popeye Maupin.  Cincinnati had a thriving club circuit partly because King Records was based there (on Brewster Avenue) until 1968.

Adler is best known from his time with his pub rock band Roogalator, that Adler put together in London in 1972, and who were one of the first acts signed to Stiff Records for the single All Aboard b/w Cincinnati Fatback.  Label-mate Elvis Costello lifted Adler’s geek in glasses persona and choice of guitar.  As Danny told it to The Cincinnati Enquirer: "I would say he appropriated my visual look," Adler said with a chuckle. "I think it's more than a coincidence that we have the same kind of glasses and he's playing a Jazzmaster. When he first came to see me play, he was kind of a California hippie dude with wire rims and long hair and played acoustic guitar. The next time I saw him he looked like me, with the Jazzmaster and Buddy Holly specks."  Will Birch’s excellent No Sleep Till Canvey Island hints that Jake Riviera persuaded Elvis to appropriate the look.  (I'm told Costello essentially "copped to it" on his SPECTACLE TV series but couldn't find a clip).

Ian Dury’s band Kilburn & The High Roads lifted early member drummer Malcolm Mortimer.  Drummer Bobby Irwin who has played with Van Morrison, Nick Lowe’s Cowboy Outfit, The Sinkers, & The Balham Alligators was a member for a time.  Roogalator’s early press was due to the inclusion of Paul “Bassman” Riley who had played with the popular pub rock band Chilli Willi & The Red Hot Peppers alongside Elvis Costello & The Attractions’ drummer Pete Thomas.

Roogalator nearly signed with Virgin Records, but the label insisted they sign a publishing contract as well as a recording contract.  Constant line-up changes lead to Adler disbanding Roogalator leaving their recorded works limited to three John Peel sessions, one well-received album, and three singles during their lifetime.

But Adler has never stopped performing his Gusha Gusha Music.  And he can still play the hell out of his signature tune.  He’s released his catalogue via band camp, and I urge you to spend some of your hard-earned dough over there, or downloading them on iTunes.  A sampling of his output is available at: https://dannyadler.com/masterworks-legacy-series-one-sheets

Regular vistors know we're big fans of  STIFF Records around here.  THE ROOGALATOR’s Cincinnati Fatback was the third single released by STIFF Records.

Everybody’s On The Short List - The Songs Of Mickey Jupp

My first introduction to Mickey Jupp was his first solo album in 1978 for Stiff Records: Juppanese, the main attraction for me being the A side as that was produced by Nick Lowe with Rockpile as the backing band, but the Gary Brooker produced B side (with Chris Spedding!) turned out to be just as good!

Next was a jump back in time with Mickey Jupp's Legend, a compilation of his earlier Legend tracks, very enjoyable work.

1979 brought us Long Distance Romancer, a rather different cup of tea as it was produced by 10CC’s Godley & Creme who played along as well.

Personally this is still one of my Jupp favorites despite the man himself considered it overproduced…

1980’s Oxford was a bit of a disappointment I thought, but 2 years later Some People Can’t Dance appeared and thoroughly enjoyable again.

Another thing I began to notice was Mr. Jupp’s songs being covered left and right, by Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Dr. Feelgood, a.m.o., Roger Chapman even named his backing band after a Jupp classic!

Over the years (in Thailand) I lost track Mr. Jupp’s activities but the 2014 Kiss Me Quick Squeeze Me Slow: The Collection was (& still is!) a great 3xCD refresher course.

However an overview of his songs covered has never been released, which made it a perfect subject for another JOKONKY compilation.

For some reason loads of Scandinavian bands revere Mickey massively and have covered his work, therefore The Refreshments had to be included.

One of Mickey’s personal highlights was a (kind of) collaboration with Leiber & Stoller on He Could Have Been An Army for Elkie Brooks!

There’s even a hit courtesy of The Judds’ Tears For You.

Other artists & bands doing their Juppanese best are Dave Edmunds, Rockpile, Dr. Feelgood, Gary Brooker, Ricky Nelson, Roger Chapman, Jesse Taylor, Chris Farlowe, Kursaal Flyers, Great White, Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons, Delbert McClinton, and Latimore.

Not surprising some songs (Switchboard Susan, Down At The Doctors, etc.) have more than one cover, but even tracks from the Legend period (Cheque Book & Cross Country) are tackled as well.

Also included are a few Jupp obscurities from vinyl compilations, Live In London Vol. 1 and Southend Rock, plus some classics to compare!

Gatecrashing by Jona

In the late 1970’s I used to frequent a 2nd hand record stand on the Hilversum market every Saturday and the guy who ran it introduced me to a lot of good artists and groups.

One of those turned out to be a musician I had completely forgotten about: Jona Lewie…

I went home with 2 Stiff Records 7 inches; Stop The Cavalry and Big Shot - Momentarily, and played both a hell of a lot! Of course, it didn’t take long to score afterwards a copy of his big hit You’ll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties…

Joan only recorded 2 albums for Stiff: On The Other Hand There's A Fist (1978) and Heart Skips Beat (1982), which I both dutifully purchased, excellent songs I thought. Unfortunately for Jona there were no more hits and that was the end of his career at Stiff.

Visiting record shops in various towns I did however manage to find more of his work, incl. his first album Gatecrasher on Sonet which was a 11 track collection of singles, some released under his own name, others as Terry Dactyl And The Dinosaurs With Jona Lewie. Then I discovered why I was vaguely familiar with his name, in 1977 he’d scored a minor hit with Come Away (a cover of Roberto Leaĺ’s Bate O Pe) and even appeared on Dutch television!

Another 45 I found was Cherry Ring with a non-album B-side: After We Swun, a very quirky blues track, utterly bonkers but brilliant!

Both Stiff albums and compilations of those tracks are still rereleased, especially Find Me In The Kitchen (used for a commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCtLrVihFhQ ) and Stop The Cavalry (which has become a Christmas standard, despite that holiday being mentioned only once!).

Gatecrasher was never released on CD which was a shame to say the least…

BUT in 2020 Grapefruit Records released a 6 CD box set:

Brett Marvin & The Thunderbolts – The Sonet Anthology of which Jona was a member as well and the last CD consisted of the entire Terry Dactyl And The Dinosaurs With Jona Lewie output! It even included that wacky B-side…

This made it possible to come up with an extended Gatecrasher collection for your listening pleasure!

 

Question: What's your favorite Jona Lewie (if any!) song?

Statelessness And Liveliness

Lene Lovich and Les Chappell in 1982.
Photo from stereosociety.com

Sorry for the long gap between posts. Thanks to anyone who hasn't given up on checking this blog for signs of life. Once again it's Stinky to the rescue with another Homemade Live Album, this one devoted to Stateless, the 1978 debut by former Stiff Records chanteuse Lene Lovich.

Her Wikipedia bio lists a long and diverse career in theater and music. After raising a family, she returned to performing and recording in 2005. Her husband and musical collaborator Les Chappell cowrote and played all the instruments (except Lene's own sax and trumpet) on her comeback album, Shadows And Dust. 

Lovich and Chappell began their musical partnership 30 years earlier as members of The Diversions with the 1975 cod reggae single "Fattie Bum-Bum". Three years later they signed to Stiff for Lene's debut single, a cover of "I Think We're Alone Now".

The album Stateless opens with Lene's biggest hit, "Lucky Number". It ends with "I Think We're Alone Now". In between there's a Nick Lowe song ("Tonight"), two written by Jimme O'Neill of Fingerprintz and The Silencers ("Say When" and "Telepathy"), and six more originals by Lovich and Chappell. 

Lene currently leads the Lene Lovich Band, which you can hear and support on Bandcamp. Please enjoy Stinky's collection of live recordings by Lene Lovich performing the songs from Stateless.

The Last Stiff Covers Compilation...

One of the first Stiff Records that I bought was a sampler called The Last Stiff Compilation... (Until The Next One). Some of the artists weren't signed to Stiff, which was confusing. Anyway, this is the last of the Stiff covers collections... unless I find enough for another one. Today's post brings the total to 117 songs, which is probably more than enough.

Stiff cofounder Dave Robinson achieved international success with artists like Madness and The Pogues. The label was profitable, but Robinson took on debt while trying to rescue the struggling Island Records. Island survived, but Stiff went under in 1987. Stiff was reactivated in 2007 under new ownership, signing new bands and reissuing old titles.

Lots of Mickey Jupp tunes this time, including one from the man himself. Nick Lowe also appears, playing along with Los Straitjackets on their version of his instrumental "Shake That Rat" from the Bowi EP (1977). Wreckless Eric is here as well, with a song from the New Boots And Panties cover album. 

There are multiple tributes to Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, The Damned, Madness and The Pogues.  There are at least two tribute albums dedicated to the Stiff label. I couldn't find any covers of some Stiff artists, such as King Kurt, Joe "King" Carrasco, or John Otway (surely someone has attempted to recapture the madness of "Headbutts"?) 

I did find a German version of "Fairytale Of New York" with Nina Hagen in the Kirsty MacColl role (it's called "Weihnachtsnaach"). I didn't include it, but you do get a Yiddish version of "Night Boat To Cairo", so please don't kvetch.

Thanks again to Zigzagwanderer, this time for Sarah Borges.

It's Swell To Own A Stiffie!

Nick Lowe portrait by Dick Wingate

This whole Stiff thing has swollen out of proportion, you might say. I've collected over a hundred Stiff covers. Today's set is (mostly) punk.

Stiff released some significant early punk records, such as "New Rose" and "One Chord Wonders". In fact, "New Rose" was the first British punk single, and Damned Damned Damned the first British punk LP. The Damned was also first to tour the US. 

Stiff also released the immortal Snuff Rock EP by Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias, which parodied the Damned and the rest of the Class of '77. 

Plenty of Damned songs here, as well as covers of The Plasmatics, Tenpole Tudor, and Devo. Plus some punk covers of Stiff classics and deep cuts like J Church's version of "Mary Provost", The Mr. T Experience's take on Rachel Sweet's "Cuckoo Clock", Screaming Believers' live version of "Is Vic There", and Nikki Corvette singing "They Don't Know". 

Self-effacing self-promotion at its finest

"Stupefaction" isn't exactly a cover: Graham Parker performs it with The Figgs, who backed him in concert and on record for 17 years. The Figgs have recently made most of their three decade catalog available on Bandcamp (as well as solo records by Mike Gent and Pete Donnelly). 

The Figgs are one of the tightest bands I've ever seen. This might seem ironic coming from a mp3 blogger, but working musicians like The Figgs need our financial support now more than ever.

Thanks to Draftervoi for the Dyan Diamond record!

Rearranging Deck Chairs On The Titanic

While seeking cover versions of songs released on Stiff Records, I found some oddities. Keith Emerson (minus Lake and Palmer) covered "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll"; Marilyn Manson has sung "Whole Wide World" in concert; and Andrew Eldritch often performs Larry Wallis' "Police Car" with his Sisters On Bongos. Stranger still is that the long list of artists who have covered Elvis Costello includes Toto and The Outlaws. (edit: and Status Quo and Exodus)

Here's another collection of songs composed by Messrs. Lowe, Costello, Goulden, and Dury (pictured here with a shady and shaggy Larry Wallis); as well as Ms. MacColl, Mr. MacGowan, Mr. Barson, Mr. Gregson, Mr. Lewie, and one Liam Sternberg.

Liam Sternberg curated The Akron Compilation for Stiff, and wrote songs for Jane Aire And The Belvederes and Rachel Sweet, among others. He produced Rachel Sweet's debut, and played guitar, bass and keyboards under the pseudonym Pietro Nardini. He also produced Kirsty MacColl's debut single "They Don't Know".

Pietro Sternberg (with white boy dreads)
and his Bone Fiction bandmate Zita Lotis.
In terms of questionable hairstyle choices,
this rivals the Phil Spector trial.

Sternberg later scored a #1 hit with "Walk Like An Egyptian". According to Wikipedia, Marti Jones sang on the "Egyptian" demo; Lene Lovich recorded an unreleased version; and Toni Basil turned it down (though she saw fit to record "Be Stiff"). Ultimately, the demo walked its way to Bangles' producer David Kahne, who saw it in a different light.

His ELPness, Keith Emerson (and his organ)

Thanks to Uncle Gil and Bristolboy at the Twilight Zone blog, who answered my request for the cover version of Liam Sternberg's "Yankee Wheels" performed by Amy Rigby (aka Mrs. Eric Goulden, who is aka Wreckless Eric).

Stiff Covers Stiff

Dave Robinson and Jake Riviera were clever Trevors. They had a knack for promotion, an eye for a gimmick, and a propensity to poke fun at the music industry. Stiff had provocative advertising slogans, attention-grabbing package tours, and innovative graphic artists (Barney Bubbles chief among them). Elvis Costello's arrest for busking outside a London convention of CBS Records executives was one of Stiff's most effective promotional stunts.

Here's a list called The Strangest Stiff Records, which catalogs novel packaging ideas like the scratch & sniff record cover, the 6" single, and 3-D picture discs. To promote the Be Stiff tour, the label released five albums on the same day (one by each of the artists on the tour) plus a Be Stiff Tour LP with the five touring artists performing versions of the Devo song of the same name. Devo wrote a theme song for Stiff, and Nick Lowe recorded a tribute called "I Love My Label".

It made sense for both artistic and financial reasons to encourage Stiff artists to perform songs composed by Stiff songwriters. This culminated in Tracey Ullman's hit version of "They Don't Know" (#2 in the UK, and #8 in the US charts). Ullman recalled, “One day, I was at my hairdresser, and Dave Robinson's wife Rosemary leant over and said, 'Do you want to make a record?'" Ull-timately, Tracey recorded four Kirsty MacColl compositions, plus a gender-switched version of the Madness song "My Girl" (which had been a #3 hit for the nutty boys).

Promoting the "Do It Yourself" LP in Oxford Street

Some of the songs in today's set are performed by Stiff alumni, and not all were released on Stiff. The Members only released one single on Stiff, but they later covered "Police Car" by Larry Wallis. "On Parole" (the b-side of "Police Car") dates back to Wallis' days as a founding member of Motorhead. Nick Lowe and Larry Wallis also served as producers for many of the early Stiff releases.

Wreckless Eric's tribute to the late Larry Wallis (1949-2019) is a touching read.

Let's Stiff Again (Like We Did Last Summer)

An anonymous reader suggested Stiff Records as a topic for the blog. I thought, "What a great label for songwriters!"  Stiff was co-founded by Jake Riviera and Dave Robinson. Riviera soon left to form Radar Records, and took Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, and the Yachts with him. 

Radar released The Pop Group's first album and The Red Krayola's "Wives In Orbit" before both groups decamped to Rough Trade. Radar also put out the Soft Boys' "Anglepoise Lamp" single before they signed to Armageddon. One of my all-time favorite LP's was a Radar release: Bram Tchaikovsky's debut, Strange Man Changed Man. The Yachts were great too. I should do a Radar Records feature... but let's get back to Stiff!

Early days at the Stiff HQ

Even after losing Lowe and Costello, Stiff was a label with a stable of estimable songwriters. Among them were Ian Dury, Wreckless Eric, Kirsty MacColl, Shane MacGowan, Mickey Jupp, Jona Lewie, and Clive Gregson (who led the band Any Trouble). 

Here's the first of several sets of Stiff covers, with two songs written by each of the aforementioned artists, plus two each from the pens of Brian James, Eddie Tudorpole, and members of Madness.

Thanks once again to Rock On Vinyl for that Darryl Cotton single: it has a Clive Gregson tune on the A-side, and a Moon Martin cover on the flip! Thanks also to HFM (the hospitable proprietor of the rudely named blog Pee-Pee Soaked Heckhole). HFM shared Marti Jones' lovely version of another Clive Gregson song. And thank you to the anonymous reader who came up with the whole idea! (ADD: I forgot to thank Teenage Dogs In Trouble for the Lemonheads b-side.)