Vigil - the lost second album

You may have seen my previous posts on Baltimore/Washington area band Vigil (FKA Here Today). Their second album, On To Beggar and Bitter Things, was slated for release in 1990, but was shelved after the band broke up. At long last the album is now available to the public via Bandcamp, with cassette, CD, and digital download format options:

This album was recorded in 1988 at Sheffield Audio/Video in Maryland. It was mixed at Sheffield in 1989 by Bill Mueller and produced by VIGIL and Sam Prager.

All songs written by VIGIL except Thirteen which was written by VIGIL and C. Macsherry

Special thanks to Bruce Dickinson (Vigil, Tragically Hip), Dirk Griffin, Howard Thompson (P. Furs, 10K Maniacs, Garbage) and John Anthony (Genesis, Queen, Tubes, Ace).

Jo Connor - singing, guitars

Andy R. - guitars

Gregg Maizel - bass

X-factor - drums

That blogroll in the right column is pretty much a graveyard now, isn't it? I think I'll leave it as is for commemorative purposes.

Guess what, I'm back! I have some new rips to share. Watch this space!

Peter Hope returns!

One of the most-represented artists on this blog has been industrial soul growler Peter Hope: as the frontman for Sheffield skronkmeisters The Box, in partnership with David Harrow for the Sufferhead EP, lead singer of Chain and Flex 13, and in collaboration with Jonathan "Jono" Podmore, about which he writes, "I am proud to say that, for my money it remains one of the most compromising & uncommercial albums of all time." (You can listen to it here... and then buy it!) Noisy, visceral, and vital, Peter Hope's music marries punk, free jazz, and electronic avant-garde, and is some of the most exciting music of the late 20th century. But this is all by way of introduction to the following announcement:

I am overjoyed to report that Peter Hope is back! The short version is that he is once again excited about the music scene and has moved to Glasgow from a self-imposed exile in the Outer Hebrides to start his own label, Wrong Revolution, for the purpose of reissuing music from his own extensive catalog (under the Exploding Mind moniker) and also releasing "material by NEW & ESTABLISHED bands & artists with a focus on the EXPERIMENTAL & CHALLENGING end of the Sonic Spectrum" (as Wrong Way Up). (See Pete's full statement here.) The first two Exploding Mind releases are out now: a cassette called Loud/Wrong/Proud (about which more later), and a CD called Hoodoo Dance. Hoodoo Dance is a generous 17-track sampler of both released and unreleased material spanning Pete's entire career (so far), with tracks from Hoodoo, Soup, The Box, Peter Hope/David Harrow ("Too Hot", one of the best songs of the 80s IMO), Flex 13, White Trash, Chain, and two solo tracks. A lot of the material on it I have never even heard before! Hoodoo, Soup, and White Trash are all new to me, and it's great stuff! I can't help thinking this is what Tom Waits thought he was doing on Bone Machine. Anyway, Hoodoo Dance is up for streaming and digital download purchase on Bandcamp, and a CD is available from Klanggalerie. And since Bandcamp streams are embeddable, here it is to listen to right here:

Here Today (Vigil) - The It/On Me

A generous reader has donated a rip of an early single by Vigil, back when they were called Here Today: "The It" b/w "On Me". The Bauhaus influences are on full display here: "The It" has a beat similar to Eno's "Third Uncle" (by way of Bauhaus), and Jo Connor echoes Peter Murphy's vocal cadences (but not his voice, their timbres are totally different) on "On Me". It's quite exciting to hear something from so early in their career! I can't find a solid date for it, but I would guess it's from around 1983. Get the vinyl rip here or here. (See here for a FLAC rip of the Vigil CD.) And many thanks to our benefactor!

Arthur Blythe - Illusions

The CD reissue of Arthur Blythe's 1980 LP Illusions is out of print and selling for high prices on the secondhand market, so here is a vinyl rip for anyone who would like to hear it without having to shell out $50-200 for a CD. This album is part of my James Blood Ulmer collection, as his guitar playing is all over it. Ulmer's guitar is also the only electric instrument in this album's lineup, the full list being:

• Arthur Blythe, alto sax
• Fred Hopkins, acoustic bass
• Steve McCall, drums
• John Hicks, piano
• James Blood Ulmer, electric guitar
• Abdul Wadud, cello
• Bob Stewart, tuba
• Bobby Battle, drums

The tuba gives the tunes a heavier beat and grounding in traditional jazz than the average avant-garde jazz session, and Blythe switches easily between lyrical leads and free wailing. Illusions was the third in a string of nine Blythe albums released by Columbia between 1978 and 1987, and came at the same time as Ulmer's brief tenure at the label, which resulted in the fiery Black Rock and Free Lancing LPs as well as the classic trio set Odyssey. If only Columbia had managed to push this jazz subgenre into the mainstream! The track list of Illusions is:

1. Bush Baby
2. Miss Money
3. Illusions
4. My Son Ra
5. Carespin' With Mamie
6. As Of Yet

Get the vinyl rip here or here.

The Brains - Electronic Eden

After months of fruitless searching for a rip of the Brains' second album, Electronic Eden (Mercury, 1981), I discovered I still have my vinyl copy, so I've ripped it myself and present it here for your enjoyment. From Atlanta, Georgia, the Brains are best known for their song "Money Changes Everything," which appeared on their first album in 1980 and was made famous by Cyndi Lauper's cover version in 1983. The Brains played solid new wave rock, with a lyrical quirkiness and intelligence (courtesy of lead singer Tom Gray) that gave them more new wave credibility than many of the North American "new wave" bands at the time that were actually AOR bands with a bit of a new wave sheen (e.g. Loverboy, Huey Lewis and the News). There is a lost masterpiece on this album: "Heart in the Street" is an impassioned anthem to the diminished dreams that come with growing up. Stylistically it prefigures the sound of Collective Soul, a band that would spring from the Atlanta area ten years later and achieve much greater success. "Collision" is a rather macabre song about a girlfriend's not-quite recovery from a car accident. The full track list is:

01 Dream Life
02 One In A Million
03 Hypnotized
04 No Tears Tonight
05 Eyes Of Ice
06 Asphalt Wonderland
07 Little Girl Gone
08 Ambush
09 Heart In The Street
10 House Of Cards
11 Collision

For a more in-depth look at the band and its history, see R. Smith's excellent blog post. (Short version: after being dropped from Mercury Records, they released the Dancing Under Streetlights EP on the independent Landslide label in 1982, underwent some personnel changes, then broke up. A couple members joined the Georgia Satellites. Tom Gray now leads the blues/roots band Delta Moon.) Electronic Eden was produced by Steve Lillywhite (as was their first album) and engineered by Mark Richardson, and contains lots of that gated snare sound that was all the rage in those days. Get the kind-of-noisy vinyl rip here or here.

SLAB! archival track

No new rips yet (having a slow period ripwise), but Steve Dray did drop a comment with a link to a previously unreleased SLAB track, a seriously rockin' rehearsal recording of "Death's Head Soup". It's so good I'm promoting it to a full-fledged post. Here is Dray's note:

finally put up a rare version of Slab doing Deaths Head Soup http://rapidshare.com/files/313490650/DHS_live.mp3.zip

its one of the very first rehearsal versions.... very scuzzy and dirty
vaguely Stooge like ...sorry it glitches here and there

Get it!

God Mother & Country - Foot on the Rock

God Mother & Country existed for a short time and put out just this one 12" in 1985, on the Kaz label. Official band members where David Wright and Bruce Smith, Neneh Cherry's first husband and likely the reason she sings lead vocal on this track. Other Rip Rig & Panic alumni appear as guest musicians, the whole list being: Sean Oliver, Nick Straker, Paget King, Henry Defoe, Dave Defries, Ashley Slater, Simon Morton, and Afrodiziak. As for the sound it's pretty standard electrofunk, along the lines of the more commercial efforts of 400 Blows or Brilliant, though with a nice skronky sax solo at the end. The B-side is a dub version of the A-side. The record was cut with insanely high levels; I've done my best to tame them, but there's still some distortion and clipping in the rips. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Junk - Continuation of Madness

Continuation of Madness is the third and final album by Bay Area acid-skronk quartet Junk, released in 1997 on their own Faffco Records label. The core trio of David Robbins (baritone sax), David Schumacher (guitar), and Frank Swart (bass) is intact from the previous album, while former drummer Diego Voglino is replaced by Malcolm Peoples. (See the previous entry for a full band bio.) The band's postpunk influences are on display here: "Ascending Thirds" is a fantasia on Liquid Liquid's immortal "Cavern" bass riff, and "Tippy Top" sounds like a lost SLAB! track. The full track list is:

01-Continuation of Madness
02-F U, Frank!
03-Stoppin' in Gilroy
04-Ascending Thirds
05-Stratesphere
06-Chutney con Carne
07-Leslie B
08-Tippy Top
09-Kojak Girl
10-Bowleeged Otis
11-Foreign Relations
12-Jive Picnic
13-Win Some, Lose Some
14-The Spoiling Kids
15-Junk

Malcolm Peoples was in turn replaced by Ian "Inkx" Herman; that lineup lasted for only a year and did not result in an album. Junk disbanded; Robbins, Schumacher, and Herman continued as Post Junk Trio, releasing four albums between 2001 and 2007. The last, Chinatown, is in print and readily available for purchase in mp3 format. The first three are more elusive, and may eventually grace these pages. In the meantime, get the Continuation of Madness CD rip here or here.

Junk - Kiss My Acid Jazz

Junk were an instrumental four-piece band who made music somewhere in the borderlands of acid jazz and skronk; the rhythms were too smooth for skronk, but David Robbins' baritone sax was too edgy for acid jazz. The band's bio from their seemingly abandoned website (last updated April, 2001) reads:

JUNK has been called a jazz band, a funk band, a jazzy-funk band, a funky-jazz band, an "anything but jazz" band, even (horrors!) an acid jazz band. While critics can't agree on how to define them, the listeners & dancers who have heard and seen JUNK will usually agree on this: they have a talent for moving their audiences (body and soul) and they do it intelligently, confidently, and without getting hung up on the labels others try to hang on them. Call it what you like--it swings, it grooves and occasionally it goes off the deep end. But label it, and the music will punch a hole through the box you tried to put it in.

JUNK's beginning can be traced back to 1988 when Dave Schumacher (guitar) and David Robbins (baritone sax) roomed together at Boston's Berklee College of Music, while Schumacher played with Frank Swart (bass) in a band that was to have a significant influence on JUNK. Six years later they all met again in the Bay Area and hooked up with Malcolm Peoples, the local drummer of choice for numerous funk/hip hop acts. Their first CD, JUNK was born out of jams worked out in a smoke-filled rehearsal space. The buzz got going right away. "A solid album," said Stepjazz magazine, "which really shows the possibilities of this music and this band." Urb agreed. "Quite against the pretty boy space cowboy pseudo-funkateer pretenders, they are willing to funk themselves into a cold sweat without apology or gimmickry."

Following tours of the West Coast, the band entered the studio with Philip Steir of Consolidated to record Kiss My Acid Jazz. A more varied CD than the first, KMAJ 's jazz/funk mix was spiced with some experimental cuts that raised a few eyebrows but also brought them critical praise, and national radio airplay. JUNK was nominated in the Outstanding Jazz Band and Jazz Album categories of the 1997 Bay Area Music Awards (Bammies).

The "band that was to have a significant influence on JUNK" would be Morphine, whose defining "low rock" sound is echoed in Junk's heavy bass-and-baritone-sax orientation. Get the CD rip of Junk's second album, Kiss My Acid Jazz (Faffco Records FAFFCD-02), here or here; check back in a week or so for their third and final album. (Have a rip of the first? Please let me know, I'm looking for one.)

Coloured Stone - Black Rock from the Red Centre

Black Rock from the Red Centre from 1987 is the first US release by Australian Aborigine rock band Coloured Stone; the twelve songs are taken from the band's first two Australian albums from 1984 and 1985. The album profile from Rounder Records reads:

With the emergence of two groups, Coloured Stone and the Warumpi Band, Aboriginal rock 'n' roll is becoming a significantand exciting genre in Australian popular music, with two albums to their credit in their homeland (from both of which Black Stone From The Red Centre is drawn), Coloured Stone saw its first release sponsored by the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association's own record label, lmpaarja. Recorded in one night, their debut LP contained "Black Boy" and "Kapi Pulka," which became #l hits, via Radio Australia, in the Pacific Islands Region.

Composed of two sets of brothers, the Lawries and the Coabys, with Buna Lawrie as songwriter, lead singer and drummer, Coloured Stone's songs and their sounds are naive, which is not to say simplistic, and they're straightforward and disarmingly honest. On this record you have straightahead rock songs devoid of the usual aggression and hostility and you have unique mixtures of all the different shades of modern pop from country to R&B to rock and reggae mixed up in totally new ways.

Finding original rock in the Australian bush is like finding a punk band in Dubbo —- it happens, but don't count on it. The uniqueness of this new breed of desert musician is that they play fast, loud and often raucous music in a landscape otherwise dominated bythe perennial C&W tunes and easy listening folk, not so much in the fact they are black. The melodies are there, the beat is there and the performances are uniformly strong. . . Coloured Stone is not some kind of folk or ethnic band; they make rock & roll with all the wit and taste that one can expect or hope for, from the personal to the political without heavyhandednesss or didacticism. Years of discrimination and determination, and long days and nights on the bush tracks have honed Coloured Stone and Lawrie's songs to afine edge.

Recommended Cuts:
"Island of Greed"
"Breaking Hearts"
"Dancing In The Moonlight"
"Take Me Back To The Dreamtime"

The full track list is:

01 Island of Greed
02 Breaking Hearts
03 Sacred Ground
04 Michael William Lawrie
05 Kapi Pulka
06 She's the Girl with the Broken Heart
07 Dancing in the Moonlight
08 Take Me Back to the Dreamtime
09 Magic Girl
10 When I'm Gonna Learn
11 I Wish I Was Living In Your Dreams
12 Black Boy

Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Monkeyspank - Demons Flew Out Of My Mouth

Here is an artifact from the Baltimore music scene in 1990: Monkeyspank's first album, the 7-song Demons Flew Out Of My Mouth on Merkin Records. The last.fm entry on Monkeyspank reads:

Monkeyspank was a Baltimore hard rock/funk band active in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Monkeyspank featured an unusual lineup of three drummers/percussionists, two bass players, and a guitarist.Monkeyspank’s sound owes equal debts to guitar-driven heavy rock and polyrythmic funk, in some degree similar to the Red Hot Chili Peppers (albeit with a much darker edge) and local Baltimore contemporaries The All Mighty Senators. They released two albums, the vinyl-only Demons Flew Out of My Mouth and Blue Mud.

The band lineup was: Bill Corsello, Allison Futeral, Dave Kahle, Kevin Keelty, Kendall King and Brian Rice. The track listing of Demons is:

1 Snakejuice
2 1000 Dead Jim Backuses
3 Akio's Dad
4 I Am Sam
5 Dr. Omar
6 Hero
7 I Shake My Stick

Get the vinyl rip of Demons here or here; see the Monkeyspank MySpace page here; get some "where are they now" information here.

Jon Butcher Axis - Stare At The Sun

The All Music Guide entry for Jon Butcher reads:

Jimi Hendrix disciple Jon Butcher achieved some moderate chart success in the mid-'80s as the singer/guitarist for the Jon Butcher Axis. Coming out of the Boston club scene in the early '80s, the Butcher Axis (which also included members Chris Mann [Chris Martin, actually] on bass and Derek Blevins on drums), issued such albums as 1983's self-titled debut, 1984's Stare at the Sun, and 1985's Along the Axis (Butcher dropped the Axis for such releases as 1986's Wishes and 1989's Pictures From the Front), opened for local Boston heroes the J. Geils Band in addition to other harder-edged bands, and issued a few singles that enjoyed some success on radio and MTV -- "Wishes," "Goodbye Saving Grace," and "Life Takes a Life." Butcher continued issuing solo albums in the '90s -- Positively the Blues (1995) and Electric Factory (1996) -- while a hits compilation (1998's The Best Of: Dreamers Would Ride) and an archival concert (1999's King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents) were also issued. In addition to his musical career, Butcher founded the Electric Factory Recording Studio, which focuses primarily on film, TV, and multimedia work. (Greg Prato)

According to Wikipedia, "Jimi Hendrix disciple" is a bit of an overstatement:

"If you grew up in the era of Jimi Hendrix as I did it would be nearly impossible NOT to be influenced by his brilliance and amazing facility as a guitar player. To be sure, my early impressions of the Jimi Hendrix Experience were completely life altering, but so too were my impressions of Albert King. Jeff Beck was and remains a constant source of inspiration, and working with Jeff on the MTV/ VH-1 video Ambitious remains an all time high." Jon also lists among his influences Richie Havens, John Lennon Bob Dylan and Keith Richards. While Butcher is humbled by the Hendrix comparisons he emphasizes that they may be superficial. " Being black and playing a Stratocaster might lead one to assume Jimi was my sole influence but that wouldn't be true. Like most musicians, in fact like most people we're a complex mix of a lot of things."

The 1984 album Stare At The Sun contains nine original compositions and a cover of Bill Nelson's "Eros Arriving" from his groundbreaking album The Love That Whirls. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

John Fred and his Playboy Band - Love My Soul

John Fred and his Playboy Band had their biggest hit in 1968 with "Judy In Disguise (with Glasses)", which satirized both the Beatles and the huge sunglasses that were a fad at the time. (Everything old is new again!) John Fred Gourrier was from Louisiana and his band excelled at Southern R&B grooves, but this style never translated into a national hit for them. It was only when they went for a pop gloss that their songs broke through. After three albums on Paula Records, the label dropped them and they disbanded. Fred got a new band together and signed to MCA/Uni, releasing a few more singles and one album, Love My Soul (1970). The new band did not include Fred's former saxophonist and songwriting partner Andrew Bernard; he wrote most of the songs on the album with his manager, Lynn Ourso. There is a distinct Beatles influence throughout the album, evident from the first track, "The Big Show", which not only sounds like "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", it also references it in the lyrics, along with "Judy In Disguise" (but which was written by outside songwriters). Side one closes with a Memphis-style cover of "Back in the U.S.S.R.", previously released as a single. In the middle of side two, the title track sounds like Fred's "Let It Be": a downtempo ballad that builds to an anthem, at which point the horns play the "Judy In Disguise" riff (co-written with Bernard). Sprinkled through the record are three more obvious singles: "Three Deep in a Feeling" (previously released). "Candy's Candy Kisses" (a dead ringer for Tommy James), and "Sadie Trout" (the album's other Bernard co-writing credit). Robert Christgau evaluates the album thusly:

With his sharp, nasal drawl, Fred was born to pop, and though he's lost collaborator Andrew Bernard, he's keeping Shreveport's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Fan Club going all by himself. Would anyone but a genuine eccentric rewrite "Sweet Soul Music" as a tribute to Johnny Winter, Pete Townshend, and Nilsson? "Agnes in Disguise (With Blanket)": "Sadie Trout." B-

The full track list is:

01 The Big Show
02 He Was My Friend
03 Where Will You Be
04 Three Deep in a Feeling
05 Sweet Soul Music-Can't Be So Bad
06 Back in the U.S.S.R.
07 Where's Everybody Going
08 Open Doors
09 Candy's Candy Kisses
10 Love My Soul
11 Leo Our Hero
12 Sadie Trout

Get the vinyl rip here or here. It's not from pristine vinyl so be prepared for some clicks and pops; if you like it you should be able to find a sealed copy for $40 or so.

Gary O'

Canadian singer/guitarist Gary O'Connor had been in the bands Cat, Liverpool (a Beatles tribute band), and Aerial before going solo as Gary O', releasing his first solo album on Capitol Records in 1981. Anyone who listened to AOR radio in the early 80s will be familiar with "All the Young Heroes", as perfect an example of that genre as was ever made. About the Gary O' album, Wikipedia says:

The first single "I Believe in You" became a smash hit in Canada, and the follow-up, a remake of The Hollies' song "Pay You Back With Interest" even reached the Billboard Hot 100 Charts, where it peaked at #70.

I never heard either of those songs on US radio; it was "All the Young Heroes" that was a hit with fans of what is now known as "melodic hard rock." The full track list is:

01 All The Young Heroes
02 Pay You Back With Interest
03 California Goodbye
04 I Believe In You
05 Suzanne
06 The Way You Look Tonight
07 Just A Little Love
08 Nightrider
09 Been A Long Time

And the musicians are:

• Gary O': vocals, guitars
• David Landau: guitars
• George Doering: guitars
• Peter Wolf: keyboards, synthesizers
• Jai Winding: keyboards
• Richard Landis: keyboards
• Bryan Garofolo: bass
• Craig Krampf: drums
• Jim Haas, Stan Farber, Jon Joyce: backing vocals
• Charlie Calello: string arrangements, conducting

"The Way You Look Tonight" could have been a single as well, though it's awfully close to the Raspberries' "Go All the Way." Gary O' released his second and last album, Strange Behaviour, in 1984; since then he has worked as a songwriter. Get the vinyl rip of Gary O' here or here.

House of Schock

Of the three members of the Go-Gos to release solo albums, drummer Gina Schock was the last, her House of Shock album appearing in 1988. Although it's technically not a solo album, as "House of Schock" is the name of the partnership between Schock (drums, vocals) and Vance De Generes (bass, backing vocals, brother of Ellen). Then backing up House of Schock is "The House Band" of Chrissy Shefts (all guitars, backing vocals), Steven Fisher (drums--I guess Gina didn't play all the drums), and Jim Biggs (keyboards, backing vocals). The album leads off with the sublime single "Middle of Nowhere"; I was going to post the video here, but it seems to have disappeared from the web. Nothing else on the album rises to the same level, but Schock makes it clear that she is by far the rockingest of the Go-Gos. The full track list is:

01 Middle Of Nowhere
02 Just To Dream
03 Walk In My Sleep
04 Love In Return
05 Where Love Goes
06 Never Be Enough
07 This Time
08 Seems Like Forever
09 The World Goes Round
10 Walk Away

The CD format of this album must have had a very small run, as it's now a collector's item fetching upwards of $50. If you would like a vinyl rip @192kps to listen to while you save up for a CD, get it here or here.

Jeff Sturges and Universe

And now for something completely different! I have ripped and posted just about all of my postpunk rarities (i.e. out of print and not already served up on another blog), so for the time being I'm going to take a side journey into other odds and ends that fall outside of the stylistic tone of this blog to date. The first such oddity is the 1971 album by Jeff Sturges and Universe, a hard-rock big band recorded live at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Sturges is the arranger and conductor; the mammoth band he assembled comprised:

• Trumpets: Bobby Shew (lead), Tommy Porrello, Jon Murakami, Rich Cooper, Derek Watkins
• Trombones: Jim Trimble (lead), Bill Booth, Dan Trinter, Stan Nishamura (bass trombone)
• Saxes: Archie Wheeler, Burt Esterman, Don Menza, John Phillips, Gary Freyman
• French Horns: Art Maebe, Dick Perissi, Aubrey Bouck, Ralph Pollock
• Lead Guitar: Dean Parks
• Bass: Dennis Kelly, Don Baldwin
• Organ, Electric Piano: Hal Stesch
• Percussion: Roger Rampton
• Congas, Bongos: Mike Lewis
• Drums: Jimmy Manone

That's eighteen horns, mostly playing full blast; this record is anything but subtle. Apart from one Sturges original, all the tracks are covers, the most recognizable today being Mountain's "Mississippi Queen"; "bombastic" hardly begins to describe it. The full track list is:

1. Junior Saw It Happen (Jim Pulte via the Steve Miller Band)
2. Sin's a Good Man's Brother (Grand Funk Railroad)
3. Never In My Life (Mountain)
4. Clown (The Flock)
5. Rice Pudding (Jeff Beck)
6. Mississippi Queen (Mountain)
7. Acid West (Sturges)
8. Keep On Burnin' (credited to Ryan/Devers, Berwill Publishing... ???)

I can't find any information on whatever happened to Jeff Sturges after this, but if you like to rock out with horns turned up to eleven, he left a nice artifact for you to enjoy. My vinyl copy is in pretty sad shape, and while I did run a click removal on the whole recording, there is still noticeable surface noise. But for now it's the best (i.e. only) rip available, and hey, surface noise adds character! If someone puts up a better one, I will gladly redirect to that one. For now, get the vinyl rip here or here.

Jesse Rae - three 12-inch singles

Look! There's Jesse Rae before he had his steel helmet and five-foot Claymore (sword)! 1985 was the year of Jesse Rae's career-defining single, "Over the Sea", the extravagant video for which established the helmeted, kilted, sword-wielding image he maintains to this day. But he must not have had the helmet and sword yet in 1982, as that is the year of the record pictured above, the Columbia release of the double-A-side 12" single of "Rusha" b/w "Desire" (the first of the 12-inch three-pack offered here). This is a different version of "Rusha" than the one on The Thistle; it's about a minute and a half longer, and is an earlier recording, though both of them feature Bernie Worrell on keyboards. "Desire" was a single for Rae in 1979 on Bold Records; I have never seen or heard that record, so I don't know if this is the same recording or not. It is a bizarre electro piece with funny sampled voices providing much of the rhythm track and goofy lyrics; its seven-minute length may be excessive, but once you hear it you will never forget it.

Next up is the 12-inch single of "Over the Sea", again signficantly different than the album version. In addition to the hotter mix (which my PC recording setup can just barely handle, sorry for the distortion on the sibilants), there is a more active rhythm synth, no instrumental indtroduction, and an additional 30 seconds of music. The real gem on this record is the first track on the B side, "Party Crackers", a wicked eight-minute funk jam. Closing the B side is an instrumental verion of "Over the Sea", with an extended Bernie Worrell synth intro in his distinctive freaky style.

Rounding out the 3-pack is the 12-inch single of "Hou-di-ni" b/w "Idio-syn-crazy", both of which appear on The Thistle in more or less the same versions (though "Idio-syn-crazy" is decoupled here from the album's "Scotland the Brave" instrumental intro). I've packaged all three 12-inch vinyl rips in separate folders in a single archive file; get it here or here.

Jesse Rae - The Thistle

Here is the only album by funky Scotsman Jesse Rae (not to be confused with Oregon "roots pop with a blues edge" band Jessie Rae; why they would choose a name that is so close to an established musician's is a mystery to me). Wikipedia says:

Jesse Rae is a Scottish singer from St Boswells,[1] who is particularly remembered for his single "Over the Sea", which reached number 65 in the UK Singles Chart in 1985.[2][3] The video for the single – which features a kilted, helmeted, claymore-brandishing Rae in both New York City and the Scottish Highlands – won a Vira award.[4] An album entitled The Thistle was released in 1987 on WEA but failed to chart. As a songwriter, he is also remembered for the 1982 Odyssey hit single, "Inside Out".[5][6] In 2007, he stood for the Scottish Parliament as an independent in the Scottish Borders electoral constituency of Roxburgh and Berwickshire.[7] He
gained 318 votes for a 1.2% share of the vote.[8]

The opening track is Rae's own recording of his hit for Odyssey, "Inside Out". What the article doesn't mention is the funk pedigree of The Thistle: it was produced by Zapp leader Roger Troutman, who also plays on most of the songs, and his brother Lester plays drums or percussion on about half of the tracks. As if that weren't enough, Funkateer Bernie Worrell plays on five tracks, and P-Funk guitarist Michael Hampton puts in a couple of appearances as well. That said, the album is definitely a product of the 80s, and while it's among the best of 80s pop-funk, it's not exactly timeless. But it's got plenty of good licks, and the thickest Scottish brogue you will ever hear on a funk record. Get the vinyl rip here or here, and check out the videos below. Oh, and about the outfit: Rae "rarely appears in public without his steel helmet and full Scottish garb."