NME's 'C86 Compilation'.... C&D, S&D, Say Something Interesting About, etc etc etc...

Selective music history as David Cameron would appreciate it. No nasty Def Jam hip hop there!

No it didn't

C86, the unassuming mail-order cassette compiled by NME, through which the indie sound and scene first coalesced

No it didn't

It's been forthcoming for yonks, with no end in sight

I don't think many Billy Bragg fans defected to the Tory ranks. I could be wrong though.

I don't think many of them listened to it either

"Later period stuff is possibly forthcoming: http://www.eggrecords.co.uk/future.asp
It's been forthcoming for yonks, with no end in sight"

Hence the "possibly". Jim Kavanagh showed up on the "forthcoming from LTM" thread to talk about this a while ago:

"The Bachelor Pad
The track listing is still undecided for various reasons .. however it will have the original version of "girl of your dreams" (from original tape) as released with my fanzine of the time "simply thrilled" (and others). Warhola singles maybe (anyone know the whereabouts of Mike Stout), rarities maybe. There is so many.

I have the 7 songs from the "frying tonight" concert will possibly release at some point maybe as a download "EP"... thats one of the reasons the track listing is still undecided, there too many options!

Remember Fun

I have "re-mastered" the original "train journey" etc demo, sounds fine, there seemed to a story around at the time of the matinee single that masters where lost - I had some (but not all). The guys are recording some new songs (original band) 'cos they wanted to.

Even As We Speak

Possibly rare/unreleased stuff, watch this space as they say but it all takes soooooo long.

I couldnt say why Oz labels are not interested (hey they know where I am if they want to help!)

I also have plans for releases from Lets Go Naked. Not as well known as EAWS/Lighthouse Keepers but excellent.

Thanks for the interest and yeah I found the "chicken rhythmn" reference, Its a long thread!

Jim

-- Jim Kavanagh (inf...), October 28th, 2005.

By the way, the "Wot no love for the Bachelor Pad" thread is still getting no love, languishing unanswered for two years so far.

Yes, they tracked down as many band members as they could. I certainly supplied Sanctuary with addresses/emails of as many of the bands as I knew, and generally (the indie network being what it is), someone knew someone else & so on.

>>>Harvey, any idea how many of these tracks are dubbed from vinyl?

No idea. Another Sunny Day's contribution is certainly from a mastertape, but as that tape is a 20-year old Maxell C90, it's never going to sound great.

And that's the point, I think. As often as not, a mint vinyl copy will provide as good -if not better- a remastering source as an old mastertape. Tape is prone to all sorts of deterioration issues (hence the need for "baking" old tapes prior to replay). If a mint vinyl copy can be found, it's simply a case of recording that from a top-end vinyl player.
I've not listened to the compilation analytically yet (too busy loving the music & reveling in the memories), but the sound seems fairly top-notch to me. All except "Sunday To Saturday", whose right channel has peak distortion throughout. Which is a real shame. But as John Peel might say, "life has peak distortion throughout".

Ha ha, some of you are now in my house!

It is nice how many of the writing credits are on first name terms only, eg "Sean".

I would aslo like to see the Some Bizarre exhibition near Russell Square, but you have to ring the bell to gain entry and I am worried about that.

What could possibly happen?

www.hungrybeat.com

The frontage was totally blank. Unless you knew it was there you could never find it.

You had to ring the bell to gain access.

I did so frequently.

I was always let in.

There were no sinister overtones.

However the shop has since ceased trading.

So perhaps the blank frontage was deleterious from a marketing point of view.

not for the first time, I covered a song from C86

http://soundcloud.com/pinefox/therese

I have been listening to the 3CD C86 compilation.

First CD is, I think, the original tape then extras; then two more CDs of other material from the year.

First two CDs a bit disappointing, if anything -- basically because they didn't correspond to the myth or legend of C86 as a genre; they're often not poppy, jangly, etc; the original C86 just was not the same as the idea constructed retrospectively. Some might say it was more interesting. There are influences from The Fall, noise, sneering - mostly not my kind of thing.

The third CD though seems to show the aesthetic (as it would later be seen) cohering more and I enjoy it best.

Disc 1 is just the original tape, there's no extras. Well, apart from they used the wrong version of the Pastels song, it's the version from the Truck Train Tractor 12" instead, which is particularly annoying since that's one of or perhaps the only song that isn't available anywhere else. But that's fairly typical for Cherry Red records.

So the tape was 22 tracks ?!

I need to read the sleevenotes properly.

Velocity Girl, Therese, It's Up To You -- all tremendous. Otherwise not very convinced by that first disc.

Worst things on it: probably Stump and Half Man Half Biscuit.

"9 Steps to Ugly - Eddie Lopez lives in Slough
Very cool, proto-Sundays. Makes me wonder if that is actually Harriet Wheeler singing."

Hard to picture HW singing a song with that title.

Crikey, though, here it is!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=865jN97IKh8

That song is fine, my kind of thing in a way, but it does not really sound like Harriet Wheeler at all.

fwiw CD tracklisting:

DISC ONE:
1. PRIMAL SCREAM – Velocity Girl
2. THE MIGHTY LEMON DROPS – Happy Head
3. THE SOUP DRAGONS – Pleasantly Surprised
4. THE WOLFHOUNDS – Feeling So Strange Again *
5. THE BODINES – Therese
6. MIGHTY MIGHTY – Law
7. STUMP – Buffalo *
8. BOGSHED – Run To The Temple *
9. A WITNESS – Sharpened Sticks
10.THE PASTELS – Breaking Lines *
11.AGE OF CHANCE – From Now On, This Will Be Your God *
12.SHOP ASSISTANTS – It’s Up to You *
13.CLOSE LOBSTERS – Firestation Towers *
14.MIAOW – Sport Most Royal
15.HALF MAN HALF BISCUIT – I Hate Nerys Hughes (From The Heart)
16.THE SERVANTS – Transparent
17.MacKENZIES – Big Jim (There’s No Pubs In Heaven) *
18.BIG FLAME – New Way (Quick Wash And Brush Up With Liberation Theology) *
19.WE’VE GOT A FUZZBOX AND WE’RE GONNA USE IT – Console Me *
20.McCARTHY – Celestial City *
21.THE SHRUBS – Bullfighter’s Bones * 22.THE WEDDING PRESENT – This Boy Can Wait (A Bit Longer!)

DISC TWO:
1. THE JUNE BRIDES – Just The Same
2. YEAH YEAH NOH – Another Side To Mrs Quill
3. THE PRIMITIVES – Lazy
4. JESSE GARON & THE DESPERADOES – Splashing Along
5. THE BAND OF HOLY JOY – Rosemary Smith
6. THE McTELLS – Virginia M.C. *
7. B.M.X. BANDITS – E102
8. ONE THOUSAND VIOLINS – Like One Thousand Violins
9. THE DENTISTS – Peppermint Dreams
10.THE MEMBRANES – Everything’s Brilliant
11.THE WEATHER PROPHETS – Worm In My Brain
12.THE BRILLIANT CORNERS – Meet Me On Tuesdays
13.TALULAH GOSH – I Told You So 14.PIGBROS – Hedonist Hat
15.14 ICED BEARS – Inside
16.ST. CHRISTOPHER – Go Ahead, Cry * 17.THE GROOVE FARM – Captain Fantastic (Demo)
18.KILGORE TROUT – The Peacock Nose * 19.THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN – Inside Me
20.THE HIT PARADE – You Didn’t Love Me Then
21.THAT PETROL EMOTION – Mine 22.THE TURNCOATS – One Breath * 23.A RIOT OF COLOUR – Skink (Flexi Version) *
24.PAUL GROOVY & THE POP ART EXPERIENCE – Tune In, Turn On, Trip Out **
25. THE RAILWAY CHILDREN – Darkness And Colour

DISC THREE:
1. THE CHESTERF!ELDS – Sweet Revenge
2. THE JASMINE MINKS – World’s No Place
3. STITCHED-BACK FOOT AIRMAN – Why *
4. RAZORCUTS – Sad Kaleidoscope
5. TREEBOUND STORY – I Remember *
6. THE NIGHTINGALES – Part Time Moral England
7. EPISODE FOUR – Strike Up Matches
8. THE AVONS – Everything’s Going Right *
9. MEAT WHIPLASH – Don’t Slip Up
10.KING OF THE SLUMS – Spider Psychiatry *
11.HAPPY MONDAYS – Freaky Dancin’
12.BIFF BANG POW! – Love’s Going Out Of Fashion
13.BLUE AEROPLANES – Outback Jazz
14.LAWRENCE & THE COMFORTABLE SOCIETY – Heartache *
15.LAUGH – Take Your Time, Yeah (Flexi Version) *
16.NORTH OF CORNWALLIS – Billy Liar **
17.POP WILL EAT ITSELF – Mesmerized
18.BENNY PROFANE – Hang Fire *
19.GO! SERVICE – Real Life
20.JANITORS – Good To Be The King *
21.THE CLAIM – Gullible’s Travels
22.THE AUCTIONEERS – Scoop **
23.NOSEFLUTES – Perfect Cockney Hard-On *
24.THE LOVE ACT – Hep Clothes **
25.THE ENORMOUS ROOM – I Don’t Need You *

** = PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
* = ORIGINALLY NEW TO CD (AT THE TIME OF THE FIRST PRESSING

odd revive.

they've done a c87 and c88 in the same style.

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/c87-deluxe-3cd-box-set/
https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/c88-various-artists-deluxe-3cd-box-set/

which, looking at the listings, eschew the more interesting (imo) bits of c86 in favour of the more 'c86'-sounding things.

> they used the wrong version of the Pastels song

is this a thing? it's just that the truckload of trouble comp had different versions of older tracks on it too. did they lose the masters? rights issues? thought they could do better (invariably false)?

I guess you're not a Fall fan, Pinefox, because I love the influence sprinkled around C86. The myth has always been that it was a single sound - the original tape disproves that immediately.

Stump is a great lost treasure but admittedly an acquired taste.

In my case Stump are the opposite of an acquired taste - I liked them at the time and now I can't bear to listen to them.

i'd've like to have seen more ron johnson records in the expanded version. they don't appear to be available anywhere (not that i've looked that hard. there was an a witness compilation on amazon until recently. but i think the label comp is long oop)

(although maybe i am nostalgic for the names rather than the actual music)

Gerald, yes, your attitude to the whole thing is roughly the opposite of mine.

I can see that it isn't in fact a single pop sound (as legend has misleadingly suggested) and I tend to wish it was, because the other sounds are mostly ones I don't like.

thinking about ron johnson etc makes me wish there was an online archive for 'underground' magazine somewhere. maybe there is?

oh look i did find this:

http://graphicnothing.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/underground-magazine-by-rod-clark-1987.html

Tim - why, what happened?

Pinefox - I love that sound as well; I am all-in with The Bodines, Shop Assistants, Close Lobsters, Fuzzbox, McCarthy and The Wedding Present. Later I came to love Stump, A Witness, and bits of Big Flame (who get too cacophonous for even me). You'd do well to check out the C87 and C88 comps. As mentioned, they focus on the poppier side and have very few duds.

Further down the indiepop compilation road is also the "Scared To Get Happy" box.

Close Lobsters (to a degree) and (more so) Fuzzbox and Wedding Present are not really jangly or sweet enough for me.

But I take the general point and I do sense that the 87 and 88 compilations might be closer to what I like.

It's apples and oranges innit. C86 was a compilation of brand-new artists while the others are retrospective genre compilations.

The connection is the use of "C86" for marketing purposes.

twas called "shambling bands" not "jangling bands" at the time iirc; a jaggedness that might be clumsy and/or willed was one of the hallmarks at least as much as velvets/shangrilas indiepop template, or something.

Stump were magnificent.

"It's apples and oranges innit. C86 was a compilation of brand-new artists while the others are retrospective genre compilations."

Well the Cherry Red C86 box is both. But the songs it includes that were not on the tape include (esp CD2) stuff that's like what's on the tape. It's not that everything not on the original tape is a different aesthetic.

"The connection is the use of "C86" for marketing purposes."

But ... given that the original C86 was a particular thing (some pop, some noise, some Fall, etc), why did it become potent for marketing something else? That's the puzzle maybe.

For me the whole thing is to some extent a case study of how culture is reimagined, re-streamlined, etc, retrospectively for the needs of a later time. Though it's not entirely that, as some of what came to be casually thought of as C86 is present in the original.

There's a great Stump thread on here

... and why did the later time have those needs?

And what time was it?

I'm inclined to pin it on the www-driven indiepop revival of c.2008-. I feel like it was around that time and subsequent years that I especially heard a lot of 'C86' as a category for indie discos, influences, etc, not particularly meaning the actual 'C86'. I feel like that was the time that the reinvention / relabelling process really took place. A clear-cut example is the idea (c.2008-) that The Pains of Being Pure at Heart drew on C86, though it would be harder really to point to a Pains record that sounds like what's on C86.

But maybe it was earlier too. Maybe all this was around by eg: the early days of Camera Obscura.

And maybe, even, by say the end of the 1980s, once some kind of idea of indie pop had been more streamlined and solidified (cf. the 87 and 88 compilations which draw on this), it was already tempting to look back and think of this in terms of C86? I can remember reviews of The Primitives in maybe 1989 putting them in this sort of context (ie: saying they were successors to Shop Assistants & Talulah Gosh, who at the time were exotic mysterious bands I had never heard).