Saturday, January 20, 2007

VA - South Specific LP(UK 1980)

SIDE ONE 25:11
ATTIC
This child is dead 3:17
Strange numbers - base seven 3:01
RENALDO AND THE LOAF
A Medical man 1:17
Bali whine 2:26
Scottish shuffle 3:20
TOXICOMANE
This nice world 4:22
THE NICE BOYS
Maybe that's love 2:37
(Remember) This Room 5:45
SIDE TWO 25:55
DANCE ATTACK (X)
Not instrumental (It's a Dance Attack) 1:03
Last of the teenage heartaches 3:01
Keep Moving 3:33
THE CHIMES
I can't smile 3:09
Through to you 2:46
Who do I believe? 2:05
ANNA BLUM Mourning in Yellow 4:07
THE FRAMES
Lost in Space 2:48
Reduced Watches 2:24
P & © BRAIN BOOSTER MUSIC 1980
"It was easy, it was cheap, go and do it!!"The Desperate Bicycles

Sung in 1977, it took two years for these words to filter in the consciousness of the Portsmouth music scene. In 1979 ATTIC and THE FRAMES released the first independant singles from Portsmouth, both self-financed projects, the records were united by one thing, the label name of BRAIN BOOSTERS. The ideology behind BRAIN BOOSTERS was simple enough; i.e. to create some mode of cohesion between like-minded bands, poets, artists and generally creative persons, for them to be able to operate as individuals, but have an outlet through the one medium if they choose.BRAIN BOOSTERS is not a company that makes people offers, BRAIN BOOSTERS can only offer people company.
Subsequent releases by ATTIC and THE MEDIA kept the label in motion, if not exactly in the public eye, but the greatest test of the label's ideology and practicality was already in the air. It was agreed that six local bands should be asked to join together and share equally the cost of recording, pressing and releasing a compilation LP. Problems were inherent in this project, if we were to only include bands who could afford the outlay, we would be ignoring the output of equally good bands, who, due to their circumstances, did not have the funds to be included. To try to comat this, each of the basic unit of six bands had to agree to share the cost of including two non-paying bands. After listening to numerous demo tapes, TOXICOMANE and ANNA BLUM were asked to join the project. A block booking of six days was made at the local recording studio, Telecomms, where the bulk of the recording was to be done. The record was pressed through Island Records' independant pressing service.
We hope you enjoy the music on this record, we feel it offers a varied and interesting cross-section of the music that is being made in Portsmouth today. At the very least, it shows that with mutual co-operation it is possible to release an LP such as this without big business backing.
The Desperate Bicyles started this paragaph and indeed the whole independant scene, they should have the last words too....
"If you can understand, go and join a band."
Nick Haines







4 comments:

Anonymous said...

A Peel fave, and one of the best of the local compilations of the period. These things bring home how dead trendy London was in comparison, and Manchester by now was little better. An excellent LP, full of bands who should have been bigger but were fresh because they weren't bigger. Thanks again.

annoianoid said...

Once again Mutant sounds delivers the goods. Cheers.

mr_sneff said...

For Renaldo and the Loaf remixes and related material visit
www,mrsneff.wordpress.com

Andrew Martin GArvey said...

The album cover is wrong.
My copy has a bit of sand paper glued onto the square with the word "sand".
It seems John Peel lost his bit of sand paper and asked for another copy!
Yes, the music was refreshing and it's such a pity that little is coming out of Pompey anymore.
Andrew Martin Garvey (Italy)