From the Top Drawer XXX - The Oroonies

Here we are at the Winter Solstice once more (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), on the shortest day/longest night of the year, the exact time of the event this year falling at 0530 GMT on Thursday morning 22nd December. It's unusual for the Solstice to fall on the 22nd, but the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days, so each year the exact time of the Solstice is pushed back by around six hours. Next year is a leap year so the auspicious solstice of 2012 will be back on track for the 21st December. 11.11am, I believe, will be the actual time for the Mayan Calendar-inspired End of this World (or not, according to whatever your belief system tells you!).

What better way to celebrate the Solstice and to enter the year of the Final Countdown than by putting another log on the fire, raising a mug of ale or glass of mulled wine and toasting the imminent return of the Light to a soundtrack provided by those Pagan minstrels, the Oroonies.

Here we have a late 1980s (?) tape release called 'Ee-I-Ee-I-O'.
The band had improved (slightly) the quality of their recordings by this time and were also using more electronic gadgets such as drum machines and samplers. The tunes were more diverse and distinctively melodic (!), dipping into reggae and other forms of danceable musics (albeit in a mutated fashion) but on the whole there would be plenty to please lovers of their early earthy Pan-worshipping pagan weirdness...

Contained on the tape are the tunes 'Aradia' and 'They Don't Want Us', both of which appeared on a rare 12" EP on Hiraeth Records with 'The Woods Are Alive With The Smell Of His Coming'. 'They Don't Want Us' even got played by John Peel on his show one night (I heard it!). After spinning the tune Peel was heard to comment enigmatically, 'I know what they mean...'

Ripped as two side-long tracks @320kbps from an original tape.
The only track titles on the tape artwork are as can be seen above -
  Side One: Around The World
  Side Two: And Back Again

Sorry folks, but there's somebody out there that does not want this album shared on Mediafire (the file hosting service I use). I have received two warning emails from MF to take this file down from their server. These could only have come from someone who is making a copyright claim on this album (or a simple mistake). Unless we are living in a Kafka-esque world where we don't get to find out who is making a claim against us, then would the person(s) involved please identify themselves here in the comments so I can either apologize to them or if I consider their claim to be invalid, tell them where to go. I find it strange that I've posted a few Oroonies albums but it's only this one that's getting the negative attention. Thank you.

From the Top Drawer XXIX - Another Green World

Taking a name and much inspiration from the minimalism of Brian Eno's 1975 same titled album, and evolving around founder and constant member keyboard/synthesist Paul Chousmer, Another Green World is a pioneering act which from the early 1980s has been supplying music to quiet spaces which have now become known as 'chill-out' rooms at many club events and meditative relaxation areas at festivals in the UK and beyond.

 

WOMAD '96 - A G W playing the Whirl-Y-Gig stage

Paul had been involved with acts such as Vane and Webcore before branching out into a simultaneous parallel existence on his own, most often with collaborator sax player Dan Carpenter but also other guests. They performed at events such as the Alice In Wonderland Mystery Trips, Club Dog, The Crypt in Deptford and many underground events in London and elsewhere. A.G.W. later recorded for the Magick Eye label and have also been much in demand to contribute tracks to ambient chill-out compilation albums on many labels.

Here we have the first cassette dating from their early period called 'My Dreams In Your Hands' which had a release in 1984 on the Cornwall-based A Real Kavoom label.
No track titles are given on the artwork, relax and let your imagination roam where it will...

Ripped as two side-long tracks from an original tape @320kbps

Download a copy HERE

Another Green World on MySpace

The Future of Free Energy is here now...?

From the Top Drawer XXVIII - The Ullulators

A second outing on this blog to satisfy requests for more from the very popular Ullulators.

 Going beyond...

The second cassette release 'Beyond The Gates Of Ull' arrived in 1986 and provided another helping of psychedelic spacerock, ambient synth explorations, Holger Czukay-style ethnic samples and dub with lashings of rocking guitar.
(Check out the first, 'Share A Clam', & more info on the band HERE)

- Beyond The Gates Of Ull  -

Side One : Ul Ul Ul He / Simply Conscious Dub / Thump The Hampster / The Emerald Table Of Hermes Trisamagistus / Pineapple People / Whales In The Grass / War Apes / Unninurnies / I Can Smell Nirvana
Side Two : Improbable Muziks / Edilhe / Sloshy Sausages / Living In A Nice Hedge / Shringara / Fish Trunks / Brooce Babbling In The Undergrowth (live@Torpedo Town 1986) / Cluck-Cluck-Oi

Ripped from an original tape as two side-long tracks @320kbps

Get it HERE

Live at Treworgy Tree Fayre 1989

Ullulators on Facebook

Ullulators on MySpace

From the Top Drawer XXVII - The Rhythmites

Roots reggae/dub, and associated offshoot variations, styles & philosophies had a considerable influence on many bands of the UK underground scene covered on this blog, and even if that influence on the music of those bands was not that obviously evident, the values and consciousness expressed by reggae artists were very likely taken on board. Certainly the experimentation of dub techniques developed in Jamaica in the 1970s have had a huge impact on the way attitudes towards studio production and mixing have evolved since then, particularly in electronic dance music.

Here to fill a gap on the reggae front is a very tight live set from the West Country-based Rhythmites. Formed in the late 1980s and here captured playing at the Sir George Robey at Finsbury Park, London as guests of Club Dog, this is a very decent audience recording of this conscious roots band getting the crowd skanking to the max, the resulting tape being sold through the merchandising outlets of the Woofsters.

No track titles available for this set, but as usual ripped @320kbps and divided into two parts.

- Get it HERE -

Live at the Frome Festival 1997 - not great quality but nice performance.

The Rhythmites are alive and well and playing today. After a break from 2000-2007 they reformed to play a few festivals. In May 2009 they started writing and recorded the album 'Stand Strong' released in May 2010.

Rhythmites website 

Thanks to BJ for the lend of the tape.

Are You Ready?

• Are you ready to start your education as to why governments are perpetrating fraud and misrepresentation on you? 
• Why are you being required to pay 'income' taxes and pay for ludicrous infringements of alleged 'statutes' (victimless nebulous 'offences') when you are not employed by the government and therefore not liable? 
• Why are governments demanding money from you when you yourself have created the wealth of the nation through the very act of possessing a birth certificate which created a trust with the government who are supposed to be serving us, the people, in their capacity of trustees?
• Do you know that your signature on a piece of paper is equal to cash and any credit agreement that you think you have with a bank has actually been paid with the signature on that agreement?
• How to go to court (at least to start with) and be the undisputed ruler of that court without employing any lawyers. Later on learn how to avoid going to court altogether.

Dean Clifford is living outside of 'Their Law' - Part 1 of 6 
Watch the whole series of 6 x 6 part videos on YouTube - this is where to start.

All this and more in the wonderful world of 'Commerce'. Dean Clifford starts a series of videos here, and displays his hard-won knowledge as to how to escape from the illusion that anyone has power over you unless you want them to. Some of the most important info that I've ever come across. (Audio is not great as the video was not initially planned to be for the public.)

Hit or Myth?

Today the first of the predictions for the end of the Mayan Calendar comes to fruition with the arrival of 13 Ahau, the end of all the Seventh Days and the end of the ninth and final Universal Underworld, according to the system promoted by Swedish scientist Carl Johan Calleman. Calleman has never claimed that any great Earth shifts are due to occur, no pole shifts, seismic quakes or astronomical alignments, but has been focused on the transformation of consciousness that this date supposedly marks, an end to duality and the start of a Unity consciousness for this planet, the fulfillment of the evolutionary plan for all of creation.

'Beginning with the Big Bang he believes creation has continued through a series of waves, each one a factor of 20 times shorter in duration than the one preceding it. Each wave has driven the structure of the universe to a higher level. The first wave drove the creation of physical matter, the second living cells, the third multicellular life, the fourth organisms living in family groups, the fifth, saw humans in tribal groups, and the sixth in national groups. The seventh wave encompasses human awareness of the whole planet, and the eighth awareness of our place in the galactic structure. The final wave, the ninth and shortest of all, began on 8 March 2011 and will complete along with all the others on 28 October 2011, sees awareness of the whole of the cosmos achieved. Rather than the series ending with an Apocalypse he describes it as the completion of the creation process of the Universe. The way will then be open to the full realisation of conciousness at its highest level which he terms "Unity conciousness".' Wikipedia

This would be rather like the stepping up in activity of the corpus callosum tract of fibres between the two hemispheres of our brains, facilitating an increase in the communication between the rational and creative areas of our cognitive abilities. Translated into global political terms this would mark the coming together of the collectivism of the East and the individualism of the West into a more co-operative synthesis of the two. Calleman's basic answer to the question of what will happen on or after this date would be 'that the universe attains its highest quantum state and creates a new stage for life'.

 CJC - 'I see three possible alternatives that may follow after the universe has attained its highest state: The first, and most dramatic alternative, is that all waves - as well as the tzolkin cycle - come to an end. This would likely mean an abrupt end to all future energetic regulation of our lives and actions and a sort of freedom shock. Life would be lived fully moment by moment by moment and each moment would be an eternity that would not be organically linked to other moments. The second alternative, which I am currently leaning towards, is that the waves end, after having accomplished their evolutionary purposes, but the tzolkin continues to provide some energetic background variation. This would still mean living moment by moment without any waves directing our evolution, but a daily variation of tzolkin energies could prevent us from experiencing life as completely timeless. The third alternative is that not only the tzolkin, but also the nine creation waves (Underworlds) continue indefinitely and the total of peaks and valleys not limited to thirteen. This would still mean that we would no longer be subordinated to directed processes going from seed to mature fruit, but it would not mean that life would be like an eternal now. Rather, all the waves that are currently driving our evolution would continue after the attainment of unity consciousness, but really without any end.

 ~~~

Either one of them would mean the end to directed evolution and the freedom to just be. Maybe it is because they hear this call from the “future” that, despite the concurrent presence of some negative omens at the current time, I find a noticeable group of people who at this very time are coming home to themselves and are truly beginning to appreciate life exactly the way it is. Maybe after all there is a shift to unity consciousness going on and that the universe is now starting to allow us to just be whatever we are.'

 So must Carl now bow out from public view with as much dignity as he can, or will all/something of the story he has supported come to pass? Will he be just the first of those prophets who will be looking for new memes to propagate after 2011 and 2012 come to pass and if no discernible change happens? Are all these predictions a load of bollocks...? Of course the process may not be noticeable at first, merely the start of a gradual one, and everybody has a duty to bring what they really want into their own lives, not simply to rely on external forces.
 Time, if there is any more to be had of it, will tell us.

From the Top Drawer XXVI - Vane

As promised a while ago on this post, here is a rare live set from the band Vane which takes us back almost 30 years to Bonfire Night 5th November 1981, and to that well-known rock arena, the YMCA in Chelmsford, Essex (!) Please go back to that previous Vane post for a little more info on the band, but here I'm going to borrow from keyboard player Paul Chousmer's 2000 interview with Aural Innovations for his insights.

Vane - formed in Chelmsford, Essex 1981-3. We released two singles on Island. (You can get them HERE - thanks to the uploader)

DS: I've never heard either Vane or Ring of Roses before. What was their music like?
PC: Oh it was such a long time ago... Vane was primarily psychedelic, but remember this was the early eighties so we had just come out of the punk revolution here and were fishing about with Goth and New Romantic styles. We were very much into electric sounds and effects. So imagine if you can: we were fronted by James Vain, 6'4" tall, skinny as a rake, loads of make-up, electric coloured hair (he was influenced a lot by Bowie's transformations - but dissolute as Lou Reed!), low lights, big bass, electronic noises all over the place - can you picture this? Very much a precursor to what Webcore got up to. A little less danceable, but much better looking! The band got fairly well known around the seedier underground scene in London. Great fun and fond memories.

I would add - great live set from a band who really should have been huge if there was any justice, blah blah etc. No doubt of their time (early 1980s) but a-head of it as well.
An intoxicating Bonfire Night brew of edgy psychedelia with gothic overtones, imaginative lyrics/inventive playing, heady progressiveness...

 James Vain (Vane) - Vox / Phil Pickering - Bass / Clive Roberts - Guitar / 

Colin Woolway - Drums / Paul Chousmer - Keyboards 

Ripped @320kbps in two parts from a cassette of xxx origin, sounds like a very good soundboard recording.

Part One: Soldier / Moods, Dreams / Mannequin Party / Glad Again / Wake Me / Reality Of Fiction / One Too
Part Two: (unknown) / God Likes Us / Man, You Know / + Shadow Of Wrythe (Zig Zag Club, London W11, 16th April 1982)

Get it HERE

(Thanks to the Chelmsford Wild Youth Facebook page for borrowed photos)

From the Top Drawer XXV - Uncle Ian

I know little about this band other than having seen them play once at the old Club Dog when it was held in Wood Green, North London, many moons ago and I must have been sufficiently impressed to buy this 1986 tape 'Going Ape In The Optics Factory' afterwards.
So the info here will be a cut-and-paste job...

From their MySpace page -
'Mark Francombe ex-guitarist with "Cranes" says: UNCLE IAN was my second EVER band. We started at school and were named after a hated geography teacher who we nicked-named Uncle Ian. It was basically always myself and Nick Elborough. It started as a joke, mucking about with tape recorders and old electric organs. We built odd circuits, and bits of synths, and at one stage had amassed quite an impressive array of analog oddities and modified er... things. (continued below)

After a while we started to incorporate video, often using snips and cuts from horror films, we became a kind of multimedia trash kitch thing. Although we recorded almost everything we did (badly) we never released much, mainly because we never wanted it to become too serious, cos were maybe afraid that that would kill the fun.'

(This is the only tape I have that features three sides...)
As usual ripped from an original cassette @320kbps as two side-long tracks.
Please scrutinize the tape artwork for track listings and re-assemble to taste.

Download it HERE

Click on artwork for larger version

Two tracks from the infamous Hornpipe gig in Portsmouth on November the 9th, 1984.

A Real Journalist Speaks

Lead Into Gold...?

 

Joseph Wright of Derby: The Alchemist in Search 

of the Philosophers Stone, 1771

If you've ever spent any time wondering what the archaic art of alchemy was all about, just what was meant by terms such as the 'Philosopher's Stone' and the suggestion that practioners could turn base metal into gold whilst simultaneously hinting at an occult transformation of the Spirit and the Body, you now have the opportunity to unravel these mysteries yourself and follow in the footsteps of the old masters.

This is the claim of an anonymous writer who has put together a freely downloadable e-book which distills the essence of the Hermetic Art, quotes from the old texts and breaks open the coded language and symbolism.

It's called 'The Book Of Aquarius' and you can get it from HERE

Alchemy and the Philosophers' Stone are real. This is not a joke or a scam. This book covers the full theory and practice of alchemy and how to make the Philosophers' Stone, capable of reversing the aging process and curing all disease to the effect that one could live forever. This is an ancient secret which has never before been publicly released. Please read the book before making any judgement on it; this world is not what it seems to be. The Book of Aquarius is free and public-domain (no copyright). You may copy and distribute the book in any way.

Supposedly once one has acquired the necessary equipment (not expensive), the refinement process to procure the 'Elixir Of Life' takes possibly between 18 months and 3 years. The one ingredient (the prima materia) needed may surprise many, but once you read the old texts it becomes obvious what is being referred to. There's also a forum linked from the download page where you can share info with your fellow questers and the author himself to compare notes.

Jay Weidner writes about the possibilities here -
The Golden Age Has Begun

From the Top Drawer XXIV - Astral Engineering

Before Astral Engineering's album 'Chronoglide' got picked up by Ambient Soho's Worm Interface label and became their first CD release in 1994, Brighton-based producer Simon Rees had distributed that album on cassette. It became a well-regarded ambient dub album that captured the atmosphere of many chill-out rooms of the time and remains something of an enduring classic.

However, previous to this Simon had released another less well-known cassette album called 'Network Space' and it is this that we have here. No track names are given on the artwork and no date of release (probably 1992 or 1993) so details are sketchy, but the music is outstanding and fans of the later CD will certainly not be disappointed.

Ripped @320kbps from an original cassette as two side-long tracks

Download it HERE

--- February 2012 UPDATE ---

Simon Rees has been in touch to let me know that there is now an Astral Engineering Bandcamp page from where you can download a digital remaster of 'Network Space' as well as pages where you can download 'Chronoglide' and 'Music for Insomniacs', the last of which was never released in full.

Please visit -
http://astralengineering.bandcamp.com/

Return of Wastrels of the Week

OK, not an obvious choice for WOTW, and I don't know about 'Everybody being high on consolation' but I reckon that Daryl and John here (and almost certainly the video director) look like they had been doing some serious partying beforehand.

Long before their clean cut makeover and run of hits such as 'Maneater' and 'Kiss On My List', it seems the guys liked to 'express their uniqueness' with some interesting ideas about hairstyles, shoes and the way you play a guitar break.

'She's Gone' comes from the 1973 Abandoned Luncheonette album, released the year before War Babies which was produced and played on by Todd Rundgren and featured some of Utopia as the backing band. Any serious Todd fans who haven't yet checked out that album are really missing out as the Runt managed to conjure up some major psychedelic rock and soul moments from the musicians...some might say it's as much Todd's album as Hall & Oates'.

From the Top Drawer XXIII - Imago

Another tape release from the Cornwall based A Real Kavoom label. Dated 1984.

I have to admit that I don't have a lot of information about this particular album, other than being able to name the two main participants, who are Eden aka. Phil Pickering of Vane, Webcore and Zuvuya fame, and Kez Reazon, at the time a member of Artistic Control who also put out an album on ARK (I may post their album in due course, but unhappily the tape copy I have is damaged and might be beyond salvaging - shame as it's well worth a listen).

The music here is somewhat in the vein of China Crisis (so I've heard - not terribly familiar with them), ie. early 1980s fresh and clean sounding electro-pop with a psychedelic twist. The ARK catalogue says 'Danceable Dynamics Slipping Through My Mind from Kez of Artistic Control and Eden of Webcore'. They deliver a pretty good cover version of The Beatles' 'Tomorrow Never Knows' which finishes the tape, here shortened to 'T.N.K.' in the credits.

 

The tape may be called 'Indigo' (according to the printed label) or may simply be self-titled, can't be too sure.

Side One : In My Mortal Eye / Going Through The Motion / Let It Drown / New Intentions / Hot Sun
Side Two : Always In You / All Come Together / T.N.K.

Ripped from an original cassette as two side-long tracks @320kbps
Download it HERE

9/11: A Conspiracy Theory

From the Top Drawer XXII - The Ullulators

A first outing on this blog for the fondly remembered Ullulators who brought their own brand of space-rock-reggae and general jamming madness to many free festivals and gigs in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Formed by guitarist Gavin Griffiths after his departure from the original twin guitar line-up of Ozric Tentacles, and having decided that the energy of their early period would best be served by splitting that atom off into the creation of a separate second entity, the Ullulators came into being.

Joined by the ubiquitous Joie Hinton on keyboards, Roly Wynne on bass and drummer Nick van Gelder among others for early gigs and recordings, initial home studio efforts yielded the first of several tapes, 'Share A Clam With The Ullulators', a collection of instrumental rock, dub reggae, deep synth experiments, and excursions into headspaces flavoured as much by the inhaled ambience of travels to the East as by the vibe of life in London at that time.

Later Gavin and Joie were to be joined by Jane Bradfield, Generator John, Kay Springer, Chambers and Andy Ull as the band found itself a more stable gigging line-up.

Two other tapes followed until in 1989 the then current line-up of the band recorded an album at Dave Anderson's Foel Studios in Wales. Called 'Flaming Khaos' and released on vinyl through Anderson's Demi Monde label, this showed the band incorporating more overt influences from world music as well as numbers from the full-on live shows that their audience had been enjoying for some time.

The band was later put on extended hiatus in the early 1990s when Gavin worked with the Thunderdogs and Cirque Archaos until the eventual demise of that travelling show. More studio tapes were issued in the 1990s, but live appearances became more rare. Unfortunately bass player and singer Kay has since passed on. In remembrance...

  Side One: Gunk Rock / Zuzklucky / Tango Mango / The Ruzbitud Shuffle / Mixy Noise / The Full Itself Remains / Fatty Dub / Stomach Speaker
  Side Two: Hanuman Dub / Blue Aethyr / Narasimha / The Ostragoth / Elephants Have Gills / All You Need Is Hash / Eternal Now / More Tea Vicar?

Ripped from an original cassette as two side-long tracks @320kbps

Share A Clam With The Ullulators HERE

***

Recently Gavin has announced his intention of remastering these early cassettes and releasing them digitally on CD, so this tape rip will act as a taster for those reissues.

Update from Myspace

(Plenty photos taken from the Ullulators Facebook page here)

 ***

Ullulators at the Pullens Free Festival 25 August 1990Watch on Google Video 

From the Top Drawer XXI - Cardiacs

'A bit like Zappa...' was the answer I received when I asked a friend how he would describe the music of the Cardiacs just before we climbed the stairs to watch them at the Hammersmith Clarendon sometime in December 1985. I think they may have been supporting Inner City Unit, I'm not sure. My memories of their performance that night are a bit hazy, but I seem to remember not thinking that much of them, a bit too hectic to take in all at once. I didn't know the songs, was a bit thrown by the madcap approach and the weird make-up, thought it was all a bit disturbing, even a bit pretentious...

I didn't really think about them much afterwards either, sorta filed them away in the 'mmm, not too sure' wardrobe of my brain, but after getting hold of this tape sometime later, gave it a listen or two (or three...) and found that the little cartoon light bulb went on in my head and before I knew it I was recognising the tunes and even knowing 'what bit comes next', etc.

Various influences became evident - Zappa yes, VDGG yes, maybe a bit of Gong & Genesis, a dose of punk and no doubt loads of other stuff that I'd never even heard of at that stage. I liked it.

I rode the rollercoaster for a couple of years, went to quite a few of their gigs, but after a while (heresy for die-hard fans I know) sorta lost interest as they started to get more well-known and even got a video or two on TV. My musical tastes wandered elsewhere and after buying some of their vinyl found that I didn't dig them as much as I had on 'The Seaside'. For me this is still the 'one', IMHO probably the best thing they've ever done. But what do I know, they are the undisputed originators and champions of Pronk and I doubt that anyone will surpass them. (Get well soon, Tim.)

Side One: Jibber and Twitch/Gina Lollabrigida/Hello Mr Sparrow/It's a Lovely Day/A Wooden Fish on Wheels/Nurses Whispering Verses
Side Two: Is This the Life?/A Little Man and a House/Hope Day/Dinner Time/Ice a Spot and a Dot on the Dog/R.E.S./To Go Off and Things

This tape contains the original (now lost) versions of "Nurses Whispering Verses", "Is This the Life?", "A Little Man and a House" and "Dinner Time" which don't appear on the CD re-issue.     (so there...)

Ripped from an original cassette as two side-long tracks @320kbps

Take the train to the Seaside HERE

Some pictures from Croydon Underground club on 5th of May 1987

Getting under way...

Jim

    Tim Q & Jim

 

 Sarah

 

Getting near the end...

 

 ...and the finale with the Consultant et al.

The lightbulb that burned for 100 years

But yours won't - want to know why?
One of the best documentaries that I've seen for a while.

"Pyramids of Waste" (2010) also known as "The Light Bulb Conspiracy" is a Norwegian documentary about how our economic system based on consumerism and planned obsolescence is breaking our planet down. Check it out.
(Subtitles aren't perfect, but this seems to be the only full-length English subbed version that you can stream).

From the Top Drawer XX - The Oroonies

With panpipes sounding and cloven hooves raking the turf, the Oroonies headed straight for rustic Arcadia to spawn their third and possibly most mysterious album 'Exalt The Horn', one which could certainly give Psychic TV and most other magickal musical ritualists a run for their money. Didgeridoos, horns, hand percussion, bells, flutes, and eldritch electronic collages combine with more traditional stringed instrumentation to conjure up aural descriptions of fecund pagan revelry in archaic woodland groves.

In anticipation of the Bacchanalian Feast, the words of Aleister Crowley come to mind - "To worship me take wine and strange drugs whereof I will tell my prophet, and be drunk thereof! They shall not harm ye at all. It is a lie, this folly against self. The exposure of innocence is a lie. Be strong, O man! Lust, enjoy all things of sense and rapture: fear not that any God shall deny thee for this.”

Once again the band did not disappoint with their choice of imaginative track titles -

Soide Oine : Exalt The Horn / Oinkoi / The Raising And The Subsequent Plunging Of The Lance Of The Fisher King (From The Film The Royal Martyr) / October 23rd / Nursery Thyme

Soide Twoi : Emperor Norton's Revenge / Eclipse Celipse / Guinea Fowl (Queen Eats Rat) / I Fondled The U Bend With A Rubber Glove / Inbetweenit / Shadwok / Dance Of The Deekshitars / Derraneanig

Ripped from an original cassette as two side-long tracks @320kbps

Download HERE

The Great God Pan (O Mighty One!) must have been suitably impressed with this tribute.
'Ex nihilo nihil fit...'

From the Top Drawer XIX - Thunderdogs

 

Maybe best remembered (or at least reaching their largest audience) as the house band for Circus Archaos during their Metal Clown production era, the Thunderdogs were birthed in the South London squatting scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Members included musicians who had already cut their performing teeth playing in other free festival/underground bands such as Ozric Tentacles, Ullulators, Webcore, Ring Of Roses & Moksha, and were to move on to play in their turn with the Ozrics, Spannerman, Dream Machine and others...

The band played driving melodic rock largely dominated by Tony's strong vocals and Dan Carpenter's sax playing, and would stretch the songs out to improvise instrumental jams according to the situation, occasionally dipping into spacerock territory where Seaweed's synths would come to the foreground. In 1991 they released both a 12" single, 'Just After Sunrise' and a full-length album, 'Thundermental' recorded at Dave Anderson's Foel Studios in Wales, and released on their own Doctor Dog Records.
The name of the band apparently came from the 1981 comic book drawn by Hunt Emerson, who contributed a hilarious cartoon of the band for the album sleeve of 'Thundermental'.

I caught the band playing atop a motorised high-rise platform as part of the Archaos show, when the not just Big, but gigantic, Top was set up next to Battersea Power Station for a month in late 1991, not long after Archaos had run into big financial problems when their main tent was destroyed by high winds in Dublin, leading to the circus' eventual demise, and (I'm guessing) the breakup of the band as well...

Side One : Name Of The Law / Sabotage / Bowler / I Don't Want The World

Side Two : Socket-Oomi / Jeremia / Blowing Away / Just After Sunrise

Ripped @320kbps from an original cassette as two side-long tracks
(slight glitch at start of Side One)
grab a copy HERE

(Some pics nicked from the Archaos Archive)