The Monochrome Set - no thread???

always loved that interview excerpt that i can only paraphrase cuz i haven't heard it in a million years but something along the lines of:
"is it true that you are descended from Indian princes?"
"kings, actually."

i was really surprised to hear "he's frank" used on the tv show heroes last night...though i'm beginning to think i hallucinated it as no one else will confirm...

Skot watches that show, surely. He'd know if that song was played!

i didn't see it! hope they got paid.

yeah that's what i said too!

I’m dead and dank and rotten
My arms are wrapped in cotton
My corpse loves you, let’s marry...

Bid Raggett

One of my favourite songs ever.

Was some of the above referencing the Iggy Pop/Fatboy Slim cover of He's Frank? How weird...wonder how it'll do.

I think I'll pick up their new comp tomorrow

just checked iTunes, Heroes (Original TV Soundtrack) features Brighton Port Authority-He's Frank (With Iggy Pop).

That's wild.

http://www.myspace.com/BrightonPortAuthority

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtqcn6pYTrA

Okay woah woah woah. That is a really weird ass Monochrome Set cover, that BPA.

Are you trying to tell me this is fucking Iggy Pop with...

god I'm really confused.

Im conflicted about that cover - it still sounds a great song, but its not a particularly interesting cover.

I can't help but like it. I love Iggy, the song would be great no matter who does it, and the beats are catchy.

I just want to know how it came about...Fatboy Slim's got a stack of Rough Trade singles? Iggy suggested it? Some producer somewhere told them about it?

I don't think it's that great a cover myself, though the original is mighty fine. Fatboy Slim had a lot of Rough Trade and postpunk stuff in his collection years ago and was clearly a fan of that era - so I'd suspect him of putting it all together. Iggy, not so much.

i vividly remember hearing jet set junta on the western conn state univ radio station in about 1982, at the dawn of my musical awareness, and i never knew who it was by, and now i see its monochrome set. i only ever heard it once, but the tune would pop into my mind even 25 yrs later, most recently during an uruguay wc match.

where did you live that you got wxci? i owe that station soooooooo much. i heard so many things in the 80's for the first time on there. i still have early 80's tapes that i made of their broadcasts. the list of bands they taught me to love is almost endless. god bless them.

yeah, ive seen you reference it over the years, i couldnt remember if i ever posted back to you on that. i was in wilton until 85. signal wasnt too clean, but it was enough to learn a lot.

my off-radio tapes were pretty shitty- bad signal xci and bad signal lir, but there were few record stores available to me and the other radio stations were.... kids today are spoiled you know, anything u want at the touch of a keyboard etc.

my cousins lived in wilton back then. maybe you knew them. the howards. ash, amanda, holly. they were nice. not very new wave though.

this is a band i never quite got round to checking out, but the samples of this new Early Recordings LP have whetted my appetite. is this Velvets-y sound typical of their later stuff too?

The Monochhttp://images.chron.com/blogs/askacat/hatcat.JPGset

If you didn't know, Bid suffered a aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage at the end of July. About half the people who get those die, but he's doing all right. There will be a period of rehabilitation though. In the meantime, Scarlet's Well has been dissolved and the Monochrome Set will be starting up again at some point in the future. The new Monochrome Set will be a sort of Scarlet's Well/Monochrome Set hybrid band, the name change seeming to be more of a question of booking power and finance than an actual shift in musical direction.

i honestly think i liked this song so much when it came out cuz it was just bargain bin monochrome set. never occurred to me until just now! bought the well well well EP and the first woodentops album just based on this song. turns out i just liked this song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLBZKSQoEIM

i think i first heard monochrome set in 83 or 84. fell instantly in love. well well well must have come out in 85?

Awww, Woodentops are GREAT! Monochrome Set is much greater, however.

Just saw The Monochrome Set performing at Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona. It was really great, though there were a bit too much 90s stuff for me, but still, seeing Bid, Lester & Co was fantastic.

Touring the States! Or a chunk therein:

27/05/13 - Bowery Electric, NYC, USA
28/05/13 - The Saint, Asbury Park, NJ, USA
29/05/13 - Maxwell's, Hoboken, NJ, USA
30/05/13 - PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, USA
31/05/13 - NYC Popfest @ Knitting Factory, NYC, USA
01/06/13 - The Record Collector, Bordentown, NJ, USA

Pretty much the only reason I'd support the secession of Texas is so when somebody said a band I loved was touring my country there'd be a better than 1 in a 100 chance they're playing within 1000 miles of me.

Eligible Bachelors is great! I dunno why it's not up there in the canon of stuff like Smiths, Go-Betweens, Aztec Camera etc?

I bet Clientele is huge fans

"Volume, Contrast, Brilliance Vol. 2" just came out:
01 Something About You (1985)
02 I Wanna Be Your Man (1978)
03 Cilla Black (1983)
04 The Greatest Performance Artist In The World (1983)
05 Reach For Your Gun (1985)
06 Fly Me To The Moon (1978)
07 Love (1985)
08 Whoops! What A Palaver (1985)
09 I Want Your Skin (1989)
10 Stories From The Book Of Love (1986)
11 White Lightning (1987)
12 Wisteria (1987)
13 Bella Morte (1989)
14 Swing (1986)
15 Black Are The Flowers (1991)
16 Jack (1991)

Wow, two new studio albums since Platinum Coils too... Super Plastic City and Spaces Everywhere! I love Bid so much.

https://www.strandedrecords.com/collections/tapete/products/the-monochrome-set-1979-1985-complete-recordings-6xlp-6cd?mc_cid=407acf8d96&mc_eid=2e56297982

I want, but so pricey!

No tracklisting?

Who wants to split the cost with me, I'd go for the CD set at half that price in a heartbeat, you can have the LPs.

Actually, I take it back. Here's the details:

https://shop.tapeterecords.com/the-monochrome-set-1979-1985-complete-recordings-boxset-preorder.html

That doesn't seem complete to me...?

What's it missing? I don't have a record player.

this life is nowhere near as nice/
as suggested in the paintings of paradise/
so i would like refund from a monk or priest/
or an amalgamated beast

wrote like robyn and played and sung like ray. win. (from song "maisieworld")

oh shit the spirit of bimble is in me here but still more, a video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJsuahBgWyk&feature=emb_logo

https://youtu.be/sJsuahBgWyk

https://youtu.be/W5K996oPoQU

this song from 86 sounds to me like drunk hitchcock doing a lounge song, but imitating bob dylan. it’s something.

i've listened to a bit of Scarlets Well now. It ranges from Spongebob style mock sea chanteys to sophistipop mock sea chanteys to bid-in-hard-irony sea chanteys. on their faces, all the songs are credibly fine, but i seriously do not get what is happening with that smothering motif.

a month later i'm still listening to a lot of intermittent Maisieworld and Fabula Mendax.

I listened to Platinum Coils after my string of posts above. As a person who lived more than a couple months in a hospital for brain injury, it is my absolute favorite artistic commentary on brain injury recovery. ever. bid will be a hero of mine forever, just for going that hard on the experience. i still can't hardly write about it.

Post 2010:
Maisieworld>Fabula>>Spaces Everywhere>>>>Cosmonaut

i've not listened to Super Plastic City, except to the first song as I type this line. It's very in character but good, and now sea-chanteying. Will now investigate.

"no sea-chanteying"

hahaha, Scarlet's Well are probably my favorite band of all time the motif is essential!

(I think the best approach is to proceed as if there is no mocking nor irony in Scarlet's Well)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oji50pnUH_o

is that the drummer who quit them and so got a song that shaded him? ha i love this band but man that is pretty austere.