We're a bit late going out on these but hey ho! Here's details of our May releases. All now up for pre-order.
We've boxed sets of CDs by The Buff Medways and The Lurkers (which features a previously unreleased live set from 1977)!
Plus we've a limited edition 7" (on orange or clear vinyl) featuring the previously unreleased first ever demos by The Lurkers!
Click on the pics to pre-order!
**PLEASE NOTE - ORDERS WITH MULTIPLE ITEMS WONT SHIP UNTIL LATEST RELEASE DATE**
Three brilliant albums by the Buff Medways, neatly contained in one box, complete with booklet! The albums are Steady The Buffs, 1914, and Medway Wheelers. Buffs leader Billy Childish kindly answered a few questions about the band…
The Buff Medways were formed quickly after Thee Headcoats split. What was it like working with a new rhythm section?
We were in the studio recording the last Headcoats pieces then swapped rhythm section halfway through and the Buffs recorded their first 45. So, a very quick change over, five minutes.
What bands would you say were the biggest influence on the Buffs’ sound?
The rhythm section really, wolf and Johnny (Barker) liked the Who, so I tried to write to suite them. (They had played in The Daggermen, and I produced their first 45 along with Big Russ, so I’d been a fan of The Daggermen, who were fans of the Milkshakes. Johnny and Wolf are good few years younger than me.)
Graham Day was previously in the Prisoners; can you remember the first time you met him?
I met Graham through Bruce - he brought him and Allan round to a Milkshakes rehearsal. They had been fans of the Pop Rivets when they were kids. Graham joined the Buffs on bass when Johnny left. Graham also played drums for Thee Mighty Caesars when Bruce left that group.
Who had the idea of wearing military uniforms? Did you have a favourite one?
That was also based on The Daggermen, via Jimi Hendrix (thou I did wear an old artillery jacket in Thee Headcoats at times). I quite like our summer kit (loosely Australian great war period). Though technically that was The Musicians of the British Empire. We changed the name when Graham couldn’t make it to Australia and Julie had to learn the bass overnight.
Steady The Buffs and 1914 were originally released on Graham Coxon’s Transcopic label. How did that come about?
Graham used to come to Thee Headcoats’ shows with the Huggy Bear mob, who were fans. Graham was dating one of them and asked if we'd do a 45 for his label. It got a bit officious with his then label manager who wanted me to sign a contract to “protect” Cocky. I said, “surely we were the ones who needed protecting.” A few years down the line Thee Headcoats had split - Cocky had a new label manager, Jamie, who didn’t need a contract, so we agreed to cut a 45 or two - then they wanted an LP as well.
A lot of people will have fond memories of The Buffs playing at The Dirty Water Club in Tufnell Park. What are your main memories of those gigs?
Loading the old ambulance, driving, unloading - the playing bit in the middle - then loading, driving, unloading and bed at three in the morning. I was chief packer/driver. (I don’t think Dick Scum - from Armitage Shanks - was driving us at that time), plus we had no roadies. Other bits - laughing a lot, flasks of tea, being fed hummus pitta bread by Julie as I drove us home.
A lot of people will be unaware of the Buffs sister band The Buffets. Can you tell us a little about Buffets and their Saucy Jack album?
Julie, my wife, was the drummer in an all-girl Seattle group The Stuck Ups. I produced their first LP for them. Tiffany was their singer. Debbie was a singer in Thee Headcoatees but was originally a drummer. Julie learned a bit of bass and I’ve always like side-projects, (let’s say “games” which all this stuff is to me), and I realised that The Buffets was a funny name. Tiffany was coming to visit in the UK, so we sent her and Debbie a tape of tracks to learn and booked the studio. She flew in, we recorded the LP, took a photo up the road, they played two shows with us, then Tiffany went back home at the end of the week.
The song ‘Medway Wheelers’ is a fan favourite. Can you remind us about the story behind the song?
It’s all about my mother’s story of being in the local cycling club in the late ‘40s/early ‘50s. We made a neat Super 8 film with original photos of her. (That’s also her on the cover of the 45.) Re the hey lyrics – I’ve been told you can’t get to Torquay in two days, but they did, and with fixed-wheel bikes. The other funny thing is the song mentions the Hobbs bike was made to measure, (my mum liked to underline this), but it was actually made to measure for someone else as my grandfather brought it for her second hand. And it was a gent’s racer. June passed over two years ago aged 93.
The group split after ‘The Last of The Buff Medways’ 7” on Damaged Goods, with you forming the Musicians of The British Empire soon after. How do you feel about the group looking back? Do you ever listen to the Buffs LPs?
I listen to some tracks if I have to learn them (I don’t know any of my songs and can’t remember words or how to play them, even live). I like the group a lot.
Were The Buff Medways the greatest group ever to be named after a breed of chicken?
According to all accounts indeed they were.
A boxed set of three CDs + booklet featuring two studio albums by The Lurkers along with a previously unreleased live recording from 1977!
CHEMICAL LANDSLIDE
With this album we wanted to keep part of that old school Lurkers feel – major chords, big choruses, shout along punk etc, but to make it that bit heavier. I think we succeeded. My guitar playing was by this point getting more metallic, and Esso and Nigel were both on top form for this album.
The record opens with ‘Every Night’s a Story’. I like the tune for this one a lot, it’s one of the catchiest on the album, I think. The album’s title track ‘Chemical Landslide’ has a Mick Jones-style one note riff which nicely compliments the lyric, a wistful reflection on times gone by. One of our later tracks, ‘The Boys In The Corner’ from the Sex Crazy album, touched upon a similar sentiment. I also get to do more of a wig-out solo later on!
‘Surviving’ has a cool military-beat dropout section which I’ve always liked. ‘Here Comes My Life’ is a good one. It opens with a quiet (for us) intro featuring a bit of Spanish guitar. Then comes the onslaught! ‘Crash Landing’ and ‘Bad Caroline’ are good tunes which I think fans who’d been with us from the early days would enjoy.
One thread that runs through the album the lyrical melancholy. Despite that the album was a lot of fun to make, hopefully that comes across too.
THE FUTURE’S CALLING
The Futures Calling seems like more of a "traditional" Lurkers album than Chemical Landslide on the whole. It is not so dark lyrically, and musically it doesn’t venture so far into metal territory. Production-wise we were a bit more confident with this one and we had a good workflow. Unusually for most bands we would bring each track to completion (ie. totally mixed and mastered) before moving onto the next. We were trying hard to keep the tempo and attack up for the bulk of the album, and with hindsight we may have overdone it a tad, a bit more variation might have been a good idea.
Some of my favourite tracks...
The opener ‘The Futures Calling’ - a return to ‘Jennyville’ and a nice slice of (very) powerpop. ‘Summer Nights are Never Like Movies’ - this is my personal favourite, and I would rank it highly amongst all the songs I’ve written. There is a lot of content and some nice rhythmic shifts, and I love the main chorus. ‘Make me Forget Where we Are’ - a raucous and catchy drinking type song. ‘Nearly Home’ - hopefully quite a meaningful song, a bit divisive, too slow for some but loved by others. We kept it empty as possible to boost the atmospherics. I really like the ‘Racing Through Time’ with the interesting lead guitar lines and the way the whole song builds up to a massive climax. ‘New Songs like the Old Songs’ - I later plundered this song for parts and it evolved into ‘Electrical Guitar’ which went on to become our first number one vinyl single. ‘It’s All Happening Today’ - I really like the choruses. I was going for a ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’ type feel but I don’t think anyone would notice, it didn’t really end up that way. And finally, ‘Not the Real Thing’ which ends proceedings in a suitably powered-up manner.
LIVE IN MARGATE 1977
It was 1977 and things were progressing extremely well. We had signed to Beggars Banquet and our first single ‘Shadow’ b/w ‘Love Story’ had been released. John Peel had been playing both sides of the single most nights on his radio show, so we were getting heard by a lot of people. But we didn’t yet have a "proper" tour bus, so we all piled into a transit for the trip down to Margate with our tour manager Mike Stone in the driving seat.
The Queens Hotel turned out to be a pretty good venue. There was a nice high stage which we much preferred over the low-slung platforms of some of the places we played. It meant that the crowd wasn’t totally swamping us the whole time, although there would still be a constant stream of people jumping on and off stage, bumping us, knocking equipment over and so forth. We weren’t sure if many people would turn up on a cold and windy night so close to Christmas but it was a good turnout, and they were out for a good time too. There was none of the aggro stuff which would become a problem later on at our shows.
The actual gig was typical of a Lurkers show at that time, being fairly chaotic with a lot of crowd "interaction". There is a recklessly fast version of ‘Pills’ on the recording, and I think we were playing ‘It’s Quiet Here’ for the first time live. Howard was on good form too; it would be his birthday on Christmas Day. My favourite quip from him is towards the end of the show when he says "eat your heart out Hank Marvin" after one of my more eccentric Shadows guitar intros.
PETE STRIDE 2022
The Lurkers - First Ever Demos 1977 (Ltd. Col. 7") - RELEASE 26th MAY
300 Clear Vinyl / 300 Orange Vinyl
(MAX 2 COPIES PER CUSTOMER)
1977. The band had been together for a few months, and we had some songs roughly worked out. I had managed to arrange a meeting with Miles Copeland (manager of the Police), and he wanted us to bring a demo tape. We didn’t have much money, but I found a very cheap studio in Hayes in Middlesex, which we booked for two hours.
At that point I didn’t have my own amp but the man at the studio said not to worry because he had a great Fender amp which was all set up and ready to go. The studio was a very small, converted building in a back garden, it was a tight fit, and the Fender amp was actually a miniscule combo amp, with a very clean sound. It was a million miles from the overdriven noise I was looking for. Also, there was no proper headphone mix and I had to play guitar in the tiny "control room" to avoid sound spillage. This meant I could only vaguely hear the rest of the band.
We quickly ran through our three songs. The man thought we were playing so fast because we were nervous, he wasn’t aware of punk rock yet. I told him it was meant to be like that. All three songs were recorded and mixed within the two hours.
The following week myself and Esso took the tube up to Oxford Street for our meeting with Miles Copeland. He had a good listen to the three songs and appeared unshocked. He was well aware that punk was "happening" so he was friendly and took us seriously. He was mainly interested in what our ambitions for the band were,we should have said “we wanna be worldwide stars," or something like that but we didn’t.
PETE STRIDE - NOVEMBER 2022
TRACKLISTING
1. And Then I Kissed Her 2. I Love the Dark 3. Rat City