Bogshed - kings of swing: discuss

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.

Even generously shoehorning the likes of Mighty Mighty and the Close Lobsters into the former category, your still left with Half Man Half Biscuit, Fuzzbox, McCarthy, Age of Chance, Miaow, Shop Assistants, Soup Dragons, Wedding Present adn the Wolfhounds who have no relationship to either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C86_%28music%29

Did this sort of thing really well. Great Lyrics, too:

"I hear backstairs destitution,
Should I walk on?
Should I listen?"

v. similar to Mekons circa "Kill".

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!!!