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

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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)

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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)

Burzynski The Movie - Cancer Is Serious Business

Mike Adams of Natural News writes...

'As I've written about many times before, the cancer industry with all of its research, campaigns, and fundraising activities is really nothing more than a giant, corrupt business venture. As crazy as it might sound to some, the point of the cancer industry is not really to cure cancer -- it is to keep raising money for the alleged, and never-ending, "search for the cure." And the hard-hitting documentary Burzynski The Movie - Cancer Is Serious Business exposes all this as director Eric Mercola tracks the 14-year battle of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski -- the man responsible for creating the all-natural, non-toxic cancer cure featured in the film -- to protect his unique protocol from being stolen by the government and Big Pharma, and to defend his freedom to treat cancer patients with unconventional methods.'

 More info at Natural News

From the Top Drawer XVIII - Nodens Ictus

Nodens Ictus was (still is?) a side project of Ozric Tentacles, initially involving Joie and Ed, and which concentrated on the electronic/synthesized elements of the studio-produced music of the band. Early influences seem to include the Berlin School, Tim Blake, Roger Powell, Steve Hillage, Todd Rundgren's mid-70s albums and more, shaped into a suitable ambience for both home listening and club chill-out sessions, though the latter term only seems to have come into use after the rave movement saw there was a demand for an area where people could relax and take a break from dancing.

The Nodens played occasional live sets, one (their first?) at St Mark's Church in Deptford, South London on the 9th of May 1987. Playing upstairs were the reformed Pink Fairies and others, but a lot of people seemed to want to spend their evening downstairs in the basement experiencing Nodens Ictus, and they were well rewarded for their choice by a fine set.

 

Ed with one of his favourite synths of the time, the 'Proone'

I remember spending most of the gig lounging around on a well-worn sofa at the back of the stage, from where I took some fairly dodgy photos over the shoulders of the players and snapped a few of the audience as well. I recognise a few of the usual suspects - maybe you were there as well...?

 St Mark's audience

It took some effort to peel myself off the sofa to leave at chucking-out time but I did get to see Twink (obviously him, as he was wearing a leather jacket with his name on it) from the Fairies loading his drums into the back of a van and wondered just what I'd missed upstairs.

 Side One: The Grove Of Selves / Aerial Procession / To Occur In A Forest / The Melding Of The Mythical Minds / Way Of The Wind / Sarukwa
 Side Two: The Gong Of Ra / Somewhere Indian / Miasma / Banging Bones / Long Musick / Bouncing In The Important Countryside

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

Get it HERE

Ed, Joie, Jane and candle at St Mark's Church

A belated CD release came out in 2000 called 'Spacelines' featuring a few of the tracks from this tape and adding others, some recorded with Merv Pepler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nodens_Ictus