Solstice Shenanigans

To paraphrase Frank Zappa - 'this blog is not dead, it just smells funny...' Yep, been busy for a while.

 Anyway, to celebrate the Winter Solstice of 2014 and the imminent return of the sun to the Northern Hemisphere, here we have a brace of live shows recorded at the mighty Club Dog during the years 1989-1990. All (except maybe Treatment) are audience recordings (taped using a stereo pair of PZM microphones onto a cassette deck) from the back of the main room at the Sir George Robey pub in Finsbury Park, North London, so quite rough'n'ready but very listenable quality-wise.

 I'm posting them all together as I don't have any artwork or images that relate to the tapes themselves, as they live in a wooden box with only simple scribbles to identify both them and their dates of origin (thanks very much for the lend, Michael!) No track details either, except for the Treatment tape which I think may have been issued as a cassette that was sold from the merch table at the Robey.

Here are the files - all ripped @320kbps and joined together (without a break where possible) into one file from the two sides of the tape.
All are archived using the 7z program which can be downloaded free from here -
http://www.7-zip.org/

Treatment - 3rd March 1989    DOWNLOAD HERE


Earthnicht - 22nd September 1989   DOWNLOAD HERE


Karma Kanix - 6th October 1989   DOWNLOAD HERE

Oroonies - 8th December 1989 (Setlist can be viewed in the comments section)
                                                                                        DOWNLOAD HERE

Rhythmites - 26th January 1990   DOWNLOAD HERE


Ullulators - 16th February 1990   DOWNLOAD HERE


Third Ear Band - 11th May 1990(?)   DOWNLOAD HERE

Some (but not all) pictures may have been taken at the Sir George Robey 

There is a short YouTube video that I was hoping to add to this post, but unfortunately the embedding is disabled, so try this link...

Club Dog on 01 For London

From the Top Drawer LVII - Magic Mushroom Band

 
It's that time of the year (at least in the UK) when weird funguses are blooming across the land and inspiring folks to walk fields, parks, golf courses, hillsides etc (best to try where cattle have been kept, but not necessarily) in search of these little helpers and guides which open the Doors of Perception and lead the intrepid traveller a merry internal dance beyond the veil...

The Magic Mushroom Band were originally founded in 1982 in Bracknell, UK as a "psychedelic space pop" band by Gary Masters (Gary Moonboot, guitar), Kim Russell (Kim Oz, vocals) and guitarist Gary Twining. Wayne Buaku (bass) and Jim Lacey (drums) completed the band.

Later they formed their own label Fungus Records and started working together with the Magick Eye Records as well. Kim Russell married Garry to became Kim Masters.

Soon after Marc Hunt (AKA Swordfish) replaced drummer Jim Lacey in 1989, they began to explore the Ambient-Dub (and eventually Goa/Trance/House) territory with their side-project Astralasia. While the members still considered themselves mainly as being the Magic Mushroom Band, Astralasia was a huge success from the start, and they soon spent more time on the side project than on the original formation.

After the founding members Gary Moonboot and Kim Oz left, the band has been "on hold" since 1995. The side-project Astralasia is still alive and active. (Discogs page on the band)

This tape is 'Live 1989' and was ripped @320kbps as two side-long tracks
Songs are as above on the artwork. As you can see there are a few cover versions included...and the set features an appearance from the ubiquitous Joie Ozric on keyboards.

Get a copy HERE

Garry has written a book about his life and experiences in the band and beyond...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mushrooms-Moonboots-Garry-Moonboot-Masters/dp/1477461841

Magic Mushroom Band playing 'Living In A Dream' at Reading Town Hall - 1983-ish

From the Top Drawer XLIX - Earthnicht

Earthnicht was a short-lived side-project centred around musicians from bands who regularly played at Club Dog at the Sir George Robey in Finsbury Park, North London, and who would also play at various squat/free/benefit gigs in London and further afield. Earthnicht live consisted of (when available) five full kit drummers (Sean, Jonee, Nick, Tanya and Generator John), a sax player (the ubiquitous Danny) and a synth/keyboard player (Paul).

 

Kicking off the opening night of the 1989 autumn season at Club Dog...

With this line-up, naturally the music focused on driving syncopated rhythms topped with improvised sound. When the drummers gelled and synchronised, the audience was in for a thunderous, danceable treat.

This tape (Earth Heartbeat) was compiled from live shows in London and Milton Keynes
 - tracks as above.

Ripped @320kbps as two side-long tracks

Get it HERE

From the Top Drawer XLVII - The Ullulators

This almost totally electronic 1994 studio release from the Ullulators sees them exploring the world of 1990s dance culture with excursions into ambient techno/trance, trip-hop, samples and loops and what would later come to be known as IDM (Intelligent Dance Music).

Diehard fans of their earlier, guitar-based organic style and those likely to be offended by any extended series of repetitive beats may be disappointed by the changes, but anyone who has ears to listen will be rewarded by some finely crafted tunes which still retain the Ullulators' signature vision of playful spacy experimentation topped with world music overtones...

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

Get a copy HERE

From the Top Drawer XLV - Evil Edna's Horror Toilet!

Allegedly the mutant brainchild of Joie Hinton (Ozric Tentacles, Oroonies, Ullulators, Eat Static, etc) and Jane Bradfield (Magic Mushroom Band, Ullulators, etc), this tasteful curiosity may also feature guest appearances from other members of those related bands.

Heavy on the dub and experimental psychedelia but not without its more pastoral moments, this collection of tracks works well as an altered state listening experience, but any culinary ideas suggested by the title of this work should be avoided by those with a less than iron constitution.

Tracklisting as above.

Ripped @320kbps as two side-long tracks, 

get your bowl and spoon ready and help yourself to a serving
HERE

A taster...

From the Top Drawer XLII - Lapwing

A recording from the audience of this short-lived band who played just a few gigs before breaking up and moving on to different projects. Lapwing were curiously named after the bird seen above ;-)

Somewhat of an underground 'supergroup', Lapwing on this occasion featured James Vane (Vane, Ring Of Roses, etc) on vocals, Dan Carpenter (Ring Of Roses, Webcore, Another Green World, Thunderdogs, etc) on saxophone, Gavin Griffiths (Ozric Tentacles, Ullulators, Thunderdogs, etc) on lead guitar, plus other bods whose names escape me - I simply don't remember...doh. A high energy upfront set with a psych/glam/goth tinged edge to the songs as the charismatic style of Jimmy Vane comes through.

Taped at the Sir George Robey pub in Finsbury Park, London, on 6th May 1988 - I'm not sure whether this was a Club Dog night or not but after checking that this was on a Friday night, it's quite likely this was a canine event - woof.

No track titles available for the set, but knowledgeable types will recognise a great version of the psychedelic classic 'Kites', a 1967 hit for Simon Dupree and the Big Sound.

Ripped from a chrome cassette @320kbps and slightly edited to preserve quality.

Grab a copy HERE

From the Top Drawer XL - The Oroonies

In celebration of the Summer Solstice here is the last of my collection of tapes released by the Oroonies. This one is called 'The Whale And The Wind', and was released sometime around the turn of the 1990s. The band released at least one tape under the name of the Cheapsuit Oroonies, more of an acoustic affair, but I'm afraid I don't have that to share.

The Oroonies went on to record an album for ex-Hawkwind bassist Dave Anderson's Demi Monde label called 'Of Hoof And Horn' in 1992. This appeared on vinyl (DMLP 1027) and is well worth hunting down, although stylistically the band had left their wild pagan-inspired psychedelia behind to some degree and moved more towards world and Balkan influenced music. The record contains a new version of 'The White Owl And The Silence', the original of which can be heard on this tape.

Tracklisting as above. 

Side Firstly contains upfront rocking material such as 'A Scary Hole' and the haunting mystical themes of 'The White Owl And The Silence', while side Secondly recalls the meditational pastures explored on previous releases such as 'Exalt The Horn' - all brilliantly conceived and performed in the band's unique style.

 Download a copy HERE

 @ Club Dog 14th October 1988

Preview for the curious...

*** The Oroonies have a Facebook page! ***

From the Top Drawer XXXV - The Ullulators

Back with the Ullulators again, as I know there have been requests for this particular tape. As well there might be, for in my opinion it represents the very best of their 1980s output.

Dating from 1989 (?) or thereabouts this album reflects more of a band effort than on previous recordings and a number of tracks such as 'Special Brew', 'Golden Soldier', and 'S.M.I.L.E.' were audience favourites at live shows.

A potent combination of spacerock, dub, electronica, reggae and Eastern-tinged inspired psychedelia presented in many shapes and forms.

  Side One: Pooja Dub/Special Brew/EE-A Whoppa Amu Hé/Jammu-Tawi Express/S.M.I.L.E/In A Space/In Plaited Hair You Hid The Flow Of Ganges Foam!/We All Love The Same Girl/Things Moving About Outside/Mangonian Pop Musik/Ajos Amour
      
  Side Two: Duck Nipples/Buttering The Guttering/Agape Dub/It's A Beautiful Thing/Honey, The Milk/Hinayn/Golden Soldier/Quiche Alaha/Harmal Radio

Ripped @320kbps as two side-long tracks - download a copy HERE

---

I believe that remasters of the early Ullulators catalogue will soon be available in digital format, probably a 2CD compilation of the best tracks chosen by Gavin and hand tweaked from the original tapes in his own studio. I'll let readers of the blog know when I discover that they're ready to go - until then, enjoy the tape rips...

(The Ullulators are on Facebook!)

From the Top Drawer XXXII - Ozric Tentacles

I'm feeling lazy after having to re-post all my links so no new rip this time, but here's one that I did some time ago and which has been knocking around on eMule for a while.
It's my own recording from an FM stereo tuner onto a TDK chrome cassette in September 1992.

The Ozrics were invited to take part in the 'In The City' Music Convention in Manchester that month and played a set at Manchester University on Monday evening the 14th September 1992. Mark Goodier's show on BBC Radio One was covering many of the bands involved including the Ozrics, and it's his voice that introduces them. Mark Radcliffe (then hosting his own weekly hour-long garage punk and psychedelia show 'Out On Blue Six') was briefly interviewed about his support for the band and features in a short clip also included in the archive.

Tracks:
 - Erpland
 - White Rhino Tea
 - Dots Intro/Dissolution (The Clouds Disperse)
 - Kickmuck

Ripped as one mp3 at 320kbps for your delectation.
Ed's guitar is a bit low in the mix to start with, but then gets a better deal as the first track gets underway, and there's quite a bit of FM compression overkill before the sound settles down. Enjoy this gem from when the band were getting their first serious media coverage in the UK. Yes, they were actually quite fashionable media darlings for a while and had regular reviews and articles written about them!
It's a shame there isn't more, but this is all that was broadcast that night.
Dedicated to Roly.

Download HERE

 (All pictures taken from Melody Maker issues published in 1993)

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 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 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 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...'