Bogshed - kings of swing: discuss

Behind most of this stuff I meant. (Though maybe it's just that the World Domination Enterprises 12-inch[es] I heard arrived on American shores later; for all I know, they came out around the same time as these other bands in England.) Anyway, I still definitely associate World Domination Enterprises with Age Of Chance, for some reason. Didn't both attempt a hip-hop influence? (Though my favorite AOC stuff -- i.e, "Bible of The Beats," the 45 of which I wish I still owned -- was before they seemed to audibly discover Public Enemy or whoever. )

I’ve only heard “Asbestos, Lead, Asbestos” by WDE. I’d like to hear more. Just checked out my Rough Trade Post-Punk CD and it says that WDE used to release stuff on Fuck Off records as The O12. They put out the "Fish from Tahiti" single which I kinda like.

I'm trying to sort out my memory of how the word "shambling" was used. I think it went something like: Peel suggests the name and it's taken to mean any of the more-or-less amateurish indie stuff he's playing, from the crunchy Ron Johnson end of things to the janglers and the sub-Buzzcocks lot. Then various people seemed to use it to mean one or the other of the above groupings but never both, and it was often really hard to understand what people meant when they used the word. Then, weirdly, the jangly and buzzsaw end of things seemed to take on the name C86 and the rest were left with shambling, in so far as anyone talked about them at all, ever.

On topic slightly: I still think Bogshed's two finest moments were the first EP ("Let Them Eat Bogshed" and the interview with Neil wotsit (Spencer?) in the NME.

Fanzines were 100% where it was at for coverage of this scene. The scene seemed to be pretty small. Maybe only 100 people or less at the gigs I attended with much of the audience being folks in other bands and who were also fanzine writers etc. eg. The fanzine Pure Popcorn was done by a couple of guys who were in the Soup Dragons and the Close Lobsters and Glottal Stop was Rhodri Marsden from the Keatons. Many poorly attended, very late (like 2am) Sunday night gigs at Rooftops in Glasgow where I was living at the time. I recall one WDE gig there with only about 60 people - this was right when they were shit-hot, had appeared on telly, decent radio play etc, but could only get a handful of mad-keen fans out to their shows. All the rest of the fucking idiots were saving their dough to go and tour Europe with The Mission, I guess.

John Peel championed most of them, though. Bogshed, Noseflutes, A Witness, the Mackenzies, bIG fLAME etc all did numerous sessions that were as good as if not better than their official releases. The final Bogshed one (findable on slsk) is really quite excellent - containing the songs US Bands & Duckfight amongst others).

Almost all of them did at least a few absolutely brilliant songs, most of which I can't remember since I can't lay my hands of a lot of these records right now. I know the Noseflutes had one really awesome number which sounded a bit like "Tom Hark" being performed by the Residents. The Mackenzies second single "Mealy Mouths" was an nice step from being the Scottish Big Flame into some kind of dancable Sudden Sway territory.

World Dom had a couple of indie hits which got played at certain kinds of clubs. Picking only one I'd say "I Got A Message For You People" was their most rousing crowdpleaser.

I think I had three Shrubs albums at one point and I have to say there probably isn't anything on there I'd care to reccomend.

A Witness were brilliant live but I haven't heard their records in years.

I remember the Janitors being played in the common room when I was at school. Loud, garage punk with shouting is how I remember them. They were on Marc "Lard" Riley's In Tape label who released loads of of good records, some quite similar this kind of stuff but slightly more digestible - Rote Kapelle is one that springs to mind. Pretty much all the Rote Kappelle releases are good but they aren't as original as the Ron Johnson bands. The In Tape label doesn't seem to have acquired much fandom on the net, possibly because their releases were quite eclectic and they didn't have a signature sound. (Frank Sidebottom, skiffle-duo Terry and Jerry, Gaye Bikers On Acid, June Brides, Robert Lloyd, Yeah Yeah Noh etc).

Slaughter Joe don't fit in with this lot, really. They were a feedback band on Creation that were initially identical to Psycocandy-era JAMC, Meat Whiplash etc and later developed to sounding a bit like the Telescopes but I don't remember anything good, except the debut single "I'll Follow You Down".

Big Flame were actually quite an influential band to the few who heard them. I know up in Scotland there were lots of bands who sprang up in their wake - they did a well remembered gig at Bobby Gillespie's Splash-One club some time in '85 and soon we had the Mackenzies, Stretcheads, Dawson, Whirling Pig Dervish, Badgewearer etc all rocking the abrasive guitar/everchanging rhythm sound. There's some discussion on these bands on another thread on ILM possibly called something like "Growing Up In Scotland" but I can't seem to find it.

The Great Leap Forward were ex-Big Flamers who managed at least a couple of good Peel Sessions and their two eps are solidly excellent - much poppier, very energetic, nervy and political. It's possible they haven't dated very well. I span them a year or two ago and thought they were still quite good but not as mind-blowing as the first time I heard them. I've never heard the album.

Also: search for Nyah Fearties. Not really part of this scene (or any scene for that matter), but in the mix somewhere.

And yeah, "Bible Of The Beat" is possibly THE most essential thing of all.

From memory: The Folk Devils, (who again I think I recall being played alongside Marillion and the Sisters of Mercy on the High School dansette) were ramshackle and punky kinda in the Three Johns style. They also got support from John Peel. Never heard of Greenhouse of Terror. Who they? Don't know anything about Pigbros and Tools You Can Trust either, though I've heard them mentioned.

The Folk Devils were actually the kind of band I liked, but I blew my cash on Bone Orchard, the Inca Babes and the Linkmen instead and never got round to 'em.

Shit, I thought I'd posted the Big Flame Youtube link last night, but I guess I didn't. Stand by: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSDgGqFc17g

Pigbros are on there too.

http://francksauzee.multiply.com/music

time obviously plays tricks on the memory as i recall that being really busy.

tools you can trust were particularly awesome as this song demonstrates.

xpost. Holy shit. That's a pretty rich selection. I'm looking forward to hearing the two Robert Lloyd sessions on there. His solo stuff after the Nightingales is really good.

Cheers for the link.

Don't know if any of you guys check out the I Make Music board, but one of the WDE guys posted here a few weeks ago:
World Domination Enterprises' Guitar Tone

Commercially Unfriendly: a History of the British Underground 1983-1989

1. Wings - Fall
2. Urban Ospreys - Nightingales
3. I Love You Mr Disposable Razors - A Witness
4. Judge - Inca Babies
5. Debra - Big Flame
6. Warfood - Pigbros
7. Spike Milligan's Tape Recorder - Membranes
8. Give Me The Keys - Noseflutes
9. Blackmailer's Heartache - Shrubs
10. Incineration - Dog Faced Hermans
11. Cold In Summer - Great Leap Forward
12. Gonna Rob The Spermbank - Ex
13. Fuck America - Jackdaw With Crowbar

A few gems, especially Spike Milligan's Tape Recorder and the Dog-Faced Hermans. As far as I know that's their debut single.

No Bogshed, sadly.

I wasn't a massive fan of this stuff, but maintaining a crippling teenage obsession with the likes of the Jasmine Minks brought me into contact with more of it than I would have expected. I recall liking an act who fitted into this crunchy* sound, but with a better sense of melody than many, called the Hobgoblins, but I can't remember anything about them. Anyone?

We didn't see much of it down Devon way, though the band Jive Turkey briefly got some exposure and the flexi by Sirens wasn't bad at all.

*This stuff doesn't really have a name, does it? My lot used to call it crunchy, which I always thought fitted, some called it the Ron Johnson sound. I seem to recall an attempt by some fanzine writer to call it the Clarendon Sound, after the long-demolished pub basement where lots of the bands played.

Everything: there's more Stetchies stuff here...
Growing Up In Scotland in the 70s or 80s.
SCOTLAND, 86--01: Search and Destroy
Stretchheads

Nice to see Rote Kapelle get an honourable mention upthread.

ihttp://homepage.ntlworld.com/kevin.hopper1/Stumpress/MMmarch86.jpg

Well it sure helps me a lot! I remember reading about Stitched Back Foot Airman but never would have guessed there was any connection between them. Very interesting.

I agree with Reynolds' assessment as well, actually and I think it goes right back to the comment upthread that "a little goes a long way" with this stuff. It's awfully fun to reminisce about it now and be nostalgic, at least it is for me, but at the same time I think it's making me have rose coloured glasses about what might happen if I tried to rediscover this stuff. I bought the A Witness album at the time and really couldn't get into it, all the songs sounded the same. I tend to think if I was meant to love Big Flame or Bogshed it would have happened by now. But I've got too curious not to try again and I'm certainly interested in hearing bands like Rote Kapelle who I only read about at the time.

This was a very youthful scene - an advance from the popular alternative bands of the day who mostly had a link with punk and seemed fucking ancient to the 17 year old me (Smiths, Cure, Fall, Pogues Sisters of Mercy, Depeche Mode, 4AD, Mute, Julian Cope, Rough Trade bands etc).

I was precocious enough to be sent to university in Glasgow in 1984 when I was just 16 and the clubs that were hosting these guys (plus the Creation bands and their ilk) were the only ones I could get into easily without ID. Everyone was under 20, including the bands so no-one remembered punk, except as some vague media thing that happened when we were children. This was our punk. The Fire Engines and the Birthday Party had been the Stooges and the Velvets, Edwyn Collins was our Bowie, and Big Flame were our Clash - agressive, political, arty and inspirational.

Silly dances were invented and forgotten the same night, horrible smelly clothing was worn, booze got drunk, everyone threw themselves around, behaved obnoxiously and had a great time. It was 10 times more fun than the gigs that the concurrent C86 jangly bands were doing, which were universally dire (bar the Bellshill bands who knew at least how to entertain).

They were building a scene not creating a legacy, so the fanzines were amateurish, some of the records were crap, it was sad when it started to die and hardly anyone remembers any more. This doesn't bother me at all - I rarely listened to even the good records post-88 and I don't expect the true history of such things to be told with a list of "good" recordings and a critical consensus filtered via 20 years of hindsight.

I'm at least glad my experiences aren't being endlessly catalogued and retold back to me through the likes of the Guardian Music Magazine, this week featuring three separate articles which reminisced at some point about the "importance" of the poor old Sex Pistols. The idea of Bob Stanley "curating" a C86 exhibit at the ICA makes my stomach churn. The only thing the one-time Bogshed fan need fear is if the likes of Simon Reynolds decides to write a book about them, but hopefully they are safe from that fate. I think he was a B-boy soul-survivor at the time. Easy enough to check though - just ask the mentalists over on the Reynolds thread.

I should put some more video up somewhere, too; I have a lovely 10-song set by A Witness in Paris in late '86, some Jackdaw With Crowbar promos, Big Flame in Glasgow & Bedford, Shrubs and Mackenzies here and there... the only thing I'm really missing - and I would climb flagpoles to get it - is any Bogshed footage. I never saw them play, tragically.

Oh, Stitch were amazing. The Keatons played with them loads in 1989 / 1990 - they wrote some stunning tunes. I should put more of their stuff up on Multiply - 7 Egg Timing Greats in particular was lovely.

And I saw The Noseflutes play in front of about 8 goths in a pub in Stoke Newington in 1989. The singer read his lyrics off a music stand. He now writes for The Independent, ha.

http://www.noseflutes.com/

Rhodri, we met a couple of times back in the day - we met when the Keatons staged a show in Kilmarnock and later stayed at Steve Keaton's place when Devo did those London gigs. Long time ago.

We were playing with Dawson and Pregnant Neck on a, er, rotating headliner. It was Pregnant Neck's turn that night, poor bastards.

Hmmmm...Both Husker Du and Meat Puppets were past their peak by 1986. By then, Bogshed and the Membranes etc were more interesting for sure. (I never connected with Stump, by the way, assuming I ever actually heard them. I think I always confused them with the Shrubs.)

Wingco and Oldfield were the Monitor chaps with the real leftfield tastes.

Back to Simon, the mid-eighties and the weekly music rags. Wasn't that the time of the infamous NME hip-hop wars with certain writers pushing hip-hop and go-go music as the next big thing while other writers pledged allegiance to mop topped boys with guitars? As a yank it never made any sense to me why there was this musical schism. It certainly wasn’t that way in the early eighties. Just contrast the difference between C81 and C86. C81 had the usual indie suspects, but also had slinky funk from Linx, jazz from James Blood Ulmer, and Furious Pig. C86 had the Byrds/Velvets axis, the Ron Johnson crew and nothing else. C86 is a musical runt when compared to its predecessor.

Side one

1. "The "Sweetest Girl"" – Scritti Politti (6:09)
2. "Twist and Crawl Dub" – The Beat (4:58)
3. "Misery Goats" – Pere Ubu (2:26)
4. "7,000 Names of Wah!" – Wah! Heat (3:57)
5. "Blue Boy" – Orange Juice (2:52)
6. "Raising the Count" – Cabaret Voltaire (3:32)
7. "Kebab Traume (Live)" – D.A.F (3:50)
8. "Bare Pork" – Furious Pig (1:28)
9. "Raquel" – The Specials (1:56)
10. "I Look Alone" – Buzzcocks (3:00)
11. "Fanfare in the Garden" – Essential Logic (3:00)
12. "Born Again Cretin" – Robert Wyatt (3:07)

Side two

1. "Shouting Out Loud" – The Raincoats (3:19)
2. "Endless Soul" – Josef K (2:27)
3. "Low Profile" – The Blue Orchids (3:47)
4. "Red Nettle" – Virgin Prunes (2:13)
5. "We Could Send Letters" – Aztec Camera (4:57)
6. "Milkmaid" – Red Crayola (2:01)
7. "Don't Get in My Way" – Linx (5:15)
8. "The Day My Pad Went Mad" – The Massed Carnaby St John Cooper Clarkes (1:46)
9. "Jazz Is the Teacher, Funk Is the Preacher" – James Blood Ulmer (4:03)
10. "Close to Home" – Ian Dury (4:13)
11. "Greener Grass" – Gist (2:32)
12. "Parallel Lines" – Subway Sect (2:38)
13. "81 Minutes" – John Cooper Clarke (0:13)

And for C86:

Side 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

Side two

1. The Shop Assistants - It's Up To You
2. Close Lobsters - Firestation Towers
3. Miaow - Sport Most Royal
4. Half Man Half Biscuit - I Hate Nerys Hughes ( From The Heart )
5. The Servants - Transparent
6. The Mackenzies - Big Jim (There's no pubs in Heaven)
7. bIG fLAME - New Way (Quick Wash And Brush Up With Liberation Theology)
8. Fuzzbox - Console Me
9. McCarthy - Celestial City
10. The Shrubs - Bullfighter's Bones
11. The Wedding Present - This Boy Can Wait

Here are a couple of links:

Indie pop and Rockism

Taking Sides : C81 vs C86

Happy days. Slightly embarrassing happy days.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/nov/15/bogshed-bog-set?fbclid=IwAR1ybOITJE6_o6agV0E2tktVi1FkzOxqyWG0jh6mDkezGHO4Ig5LvWwYza4

Wow, shocking that 3 of them are dead. How sad.

Yes, shocking.

CD5 on the bog-set looks exciting - i've only heard half of these on those DVDRs that were doing the rounds turn of the century
CD5 – Who Scoffed The Trill?
1 Budgies
2 This MUST Be Taken Seriously
3 Necktie Murder Shopping Trollies
4 Gathering Change
5 Proper Music
6 You Are This
7 Too Many Personalities
8 The Amazing Roy North Penis Band
9 Hardly Manky
10 I Feel Like A Thing
11 Are You Alive
12 Thankyou Horse
13 Pain Is Nice
14 Lodger Problem
15 Piano Vocal Easy Organ
16 I Taste Little Windmill
17 I Prayed In Your Parlour
18 Monument
19 Soon To Exist
20 Oh Regulation!
21 Sunday Man
22 My Little Heart's In A Whirl
23 Simple Spinal
24 Runner On A Blunder

Yeah nothing there is familiar & should be a fun listen. Mostly looking to hear the later peel session tracks in best quality because that was some gold.

been catching up with this thread today, really great read. Listening to the Death to Trad Rock comp on Spotify. Love this kind of thing, always fascinated by UK bands that didn't didn't fit in with whatever the narrative of what was going on in the UK musically was at that point.

I remember hearing there was supposed to be a volume 2 of "Death To Trad Rock".

just discovered this super fun band… correctly guessed there would be an informative ilm thread <3 would have liked to see them in the day, such a great kind of energy. Adventure of Dog!!!