Hello folks!
Short notice on this but it's exciting news! Out NEXT FRIDAY we have a brand new studio album by Wild Billy Childish & CTMF!
It's called Where The Wild Purple Iris Grows and features 12 recently recorded tracks at Ranscombe Studios in Rochester.
Also up for pre-order is a split 7" single featuring Wild Billy Childish & CTMF with a new track 'Bob Dylan's Got A Lot To Answer For' and The Chatham Singers with 'Chatham MTB'. Both tracks on this are exclusive to this release. Release date on this is August 27th.
Also out in August is a new album and 7" single by The Shadracks, along with a coloured vinyl repress of our Talulah Gosh Compilation.
Full details on all titles below.
**PLEASE NOTE RELEASE DATES - IF ORDERING MULTIPLE TITLES YOUR ORDER WILL NOT SHIP UNTIL ALL ITEMS ARE RELEASED**
Wild Billy Childish & CTMF- Where The Wild Purple Iris Grows (Black Vinyl LP/CD) - OUT 6th AUGUST
New album from CTMF! - CD, digital and black vinyl LP!
Billy Childish - Musician, poet, painter and writer shows no sign of slowing down. The last twelve months have seen him record a “career in a year” with The William Loveday Intention, battle off a debilitating COVID infection and revisit his punk roots with CTMF. We asked him a few questions about the latest, and possibly greatest CTMF album.
Your records with The William Loveday Intention, exploring lyric-led-folk ‘n’ roll have been well received over the last year. With that band you’re aiming to do a “career in a year”. What made you want to make a CTMF album in the midst of it?
I think you must be confusing me with somebody else. I've heard some of The William Loveday recordings, and they sound great but the group is nothing to do with me. But we did record a track with CTMF - 'Bob Dylan's Got A Lot To Answer For'.
For the uninitiated how does a CTMF album differ from a WLI album?
Easy. They are very different groups, apart from William Loveday poaching a few of our group members and covering a few of my old songs, that is. Also the WLI record in the same studio but there the similarities end.
The album opens with the title song ‘Where The Wild Purple Iris Grows.’ What inspired the song?
This is about a river on the fens long ago. The last of the traditional eel catchers, and the wild iris growing on the fenland banks.
‘She Was Wearing Tangerine’ looks back at your time working as a hospital porter. It’s difficult to think of anyone else who uses their life as source material in such an open and honest way. Why is it important for you to be able to do that?
It must come from my writing confessional prose which I've done for 40 last years. The truth must out!
You’ve done a new version of Thee Headcoats track ‘Come Into My Life’ on this record. What made you want to revisit that song?
That actually goes back to Thee Mighty Caesars. I like to see if my muscles still work at 60 as well as they did at 25.
The closing song ‘The Same Tree’ has some of my favourite lyrics on the record – laughing dogs, rolling fog, dwarves, giants, cats eyes, drinking tea etc. What’s the inspiration behind that one?
This is actually an old Headcoats song for which I have great affection. Before i started writing confessional poetry I used to write nonsense rhymes. In 1977 i was a big fan of Kurt Schwitters, Hans Arp, Edward Lear, and nursery rhymes in general. I still have a soft spot for nonsense verse. Strange truths can emerge when the mind is set free, (though not reliant on drugs).
The previous CTMF album was Last Punk Standing. I think it’s fair to say you’ve earned that title. How do you keep up your enthusiasm and desire to make new music?
Ah, that's not my title, it was a genuine question - “Who'll be the last punk standing?”. I was likening to some of my loves in that song - Leadbelly's 'Roberta' and Buzzcocks' 'Spiral Scratch'.
The album cover features a picture of you looking happy and enjoying a cigar. What constitutes a decent smoke?
When I was in the dockyard, 46 years ago, I smoked a clay pipe with the Balkan Sabranie mixture. That is no more. In my 20s I smoked Players Weights. Now I occasionally partake in a pipe with a near match for that the late great Balkan Sabranie Otherwise on a special opening I will enjoy a Montecristo No 2.
I know you’re selective about the number and nature of gigs you do these days but the Lexington, Koko and Margate shows a few years ago were great fun. Are there any plans to play a live show soon?
There's always a possibility, as Miss Poppins says - “When the wind is in the east, mist coming in, like something's brewing and about to begin. Can't put my finger on what lies in store, but I fear what's to happen all happened before.”
Wild Billy Childish & CTMF / The Chatham Singers
Bob Dylan's Got A Lot To Answer For/Chatham MTB (Ltd Black 7"- 500 Copies) RELEASED - 27th AUGUST
New limited edition split 7” from CTMF and The Chatham Singers!
500 copies on black vinyl! Both tracks exclusive to this release!
“Even an idiot must admit that Bob Dylan made some great tunes - what a guy! But despite his many achievements it must also be said that Bob has got a lot to answer for. We wrote him a complementary tune - for free! A cheap shot? An easy target? No, Bob is an elusive one, only to be brought to heel with expert chords and lyrics. Here we achieve this with effortless wit, skill and good humour. God save Bob Dylan!"
“Chatham MTB refers to the motor torpedo boat that was moored on the River Medway, behind the old Empire Theatre. The MTB was once accommodation for the tiller girls. Though the theatre was knocked down in the early '60s the MTB was still moored there when I was a kid and we used to go and view it sitting there in the ogin when visiting The Young Man's Shop to get our school uniforms. By the mid '80s, The Young Man's Shop was long gone and the MTB was rotting into the mud.”
“What sadness the passing of time brings. It seemed important to me to commemorate the MTB, The Royal Navy and long-legged tiller girls with a thumping blues instrumental. Enjoy!”
Billy Childish – June 2021
The Shadracks - From Human Like Forms (Black Vinyl LP)
RELEASED - 13th AUGUST
MEDWAY GARAGE UPSTARTS! 2nd LP!
The Shadracks are a three-piece rock n’ roll group hailing from Medway, Kent. With timeless and expert precision the Shadracks play from 37.3 years in the past 33.7 years into the future.
The actual origins of the group date back even further with their cultural appropriation of Babylonian 'Rhythm and Punk. A mere 3 years ago Huddie Shadrack and Elisa Abednego had a brief encounter in deserted parkland. Discovering sheared an interest in vacant park benches, herbaceous borders and beat music it became paramount that they form a group - and quickly.
After the release of there self titled debut LP, a subsequent live BBC 6Music session for Marc Riley and a fast selling EP, Elle Meshack retired from The Shadracks to peruse a career as a Poly Styrene impersonator aboard a Tahitian cruise liner: SS Honolulu Baby.
Fortunately for the bass bereft Shadracks an advert placed in the window of a local stationers was answered by a certain Rhys ‘King Nebuchadnezzar’ Webb. A meeting issued and after proclaiming "Oh merciful Marduck, may the house that I have built endure forever” Their followed a two-hour induction ceremony (in which to learn all the new tracks for their forthcoming long player From Human Like Forms and Webb, for it was he, was sworn into The Shadracks fraternity.
From Human Like Forms sees The Shadracks achieving giddy new heights in their song writing and performing abilities - pushing their ancient sound 3.7 years ahead of the current lunar time module.
Councillor Duxbury 2021
The Shadracks - Pray/Time's Up (Ltd. Black 7" - 500 copies)
RELEASED - 27th AUGUST
Limited edition of 500 copies!
A side - taken from the band's new LP!
B-side – a cover of Buzzcocks' 'Time's Up' – Exclusive to this release!
https://www.facebook.com/theshadracksgroup/
https://www.instagram.com/the_shadracks/
Talulah Gosh - Was It Just A Dream? (Ltd. Lemon & Lime vinyl 2LP/CD)
RELEASED - 13th AUGUST
Due to popular demand! It's our classic Talulah Gosh compilation album reissued on LEMON & LIME gatefold coloured vinyl!
As heard recently on Tim Burgess' Twitter listening party, you can listen again here https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/pages/replay/feed_334.html
Talulah Gosh were a guitar-pop group from Oxford and one of the leading bands of the twee pop movement/C86, taking their name from the headline of an NME interview with Clare Grogan. They supposedly formed when Amelia Fletcher and Elizabeth Price, both wearing Pastels badges, met at a club in Oxford. Formed in 1986, their original line-up comprised Amelia Fletcher (vocals, guitar), her younger brother Mathew Fletcher (drums), Peter Momtchiloff (lead guitar), Rob Pursey (bass) and Elizabeth Price (vocals). Rob left early on, to be replaced by Chris Scott. Elizabeth left in 1987 to be replaced by Eithne Farry. They called it a day in late 1988 with Amelia, Matthew and Peter reappearing soon after as ‘Heavenly’.
Amelia and Rob went on to form Tender Trap and released the 2012 album ’10 Songs about Girls’. They currently perform as The Catenary Wires
Peter Momtchiloff went on to join Would-Be-Goods and The Hot Hooves.
Eithne Farry is an author and likes a glass of sherry
Elizabeth Price won the 2012 Turner Prize for her video installation “The Woolworths Chior of 1979”
This compilation brings together all of their recorded output, plus the two BBC sessions and the four tracks which appeared on the demos EP in 2011.
The CD includes a 24 page booklet featuring sleeve notes and an interview with the band by Everett True.