Hello folks!
A reminder about these two great records we have due out next month!
We've a brand new 7" by The Guy Hamper Trio feat. James Taylor, plus a reissue of Thee Headcoats' final LP (from their original incarnation that is!)
Both titles are set for release on April 26th but you can get your orders placed now. Just click on the cover art below!
Also in the pipeline is a new studio album and single by Johnny Moped. They're not up for presale yet but you can have a sneaky preview of the artwork below.
For live music check out the our gig listings here. This weekend The Courettes are in Germany, Thee Dagger Debs play at The Night Owl in Finsbury Park, while The Priscillas are out on tour with Lene Lovich. Something for everyone!
The Guy Hamper Trio feat. James Taylor - Instrument of Evil c/w Incense Rising From a Censer (Black vinyl 7")
RELEASE DATE 26th APRIL 2024
Superb 45 featuring two Hammond-led instrumentals!
Check out our promo teaser video ...
We caught up with Mr Guy Hamper for an insightful Q&A…
What a cracking single this is! 'Instrument of Evil' in particular has a very eerie vibe. What was the inspiration for it?
The track is the sequel to ‘7% Solution’, which featured on the last Guy Hamper Trio LP with Thee Headcoats standing in as rhythm section. A 7% Solution being the amount of morphine Dr Watson administered to Sherlock Holmes. For ‘Instrument of Evil’ I took Sherlock Holmes’ later designation of his syringe as “an Instrument of Evil”. This is originally a quote from the bible - "Wicked men do at times reject God's purpose for the state, transforming the good of civil government into an instrument of evil."
Point of interest: Morphine addiction happens to tie in with another aspect of the song. In the section that nods to Elmer Bernstein’s main title theme to the film of the book The Man With the Golden Arm, in which the main character is also a morphine addict. Another ingredient - we added six-string bass to that section in tribute to Jet Harris - he formerly of top group The Shadows, who recorded a great version of Bernstein’s classic. To top it all off the record sleeve references the fine graphics of the great Saul Bass. Phew!
The track features contributions from Tom Morley (trumpet) and Anna Jordanous (sax). What's it like working with them?
They are great and easy to work with. I basically make a playground and let them loose in it with very little direction, apart from pointing out the swings and location of the roundabout. I told Tom “You’re a Spanish trumpeter stood on a hill in Spain.” For Anna, I think we said “go low and nasty.”
On the flip side you have 'Incense Rising From a Censer'. A very evocative title for an evocative track. Do you have lyrics in mind for this for a possible later release?
No lyrics have sprung to mind as yet - but it’s always possible. The title is from The Elders observation in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, a book I really recommend. Prayer rises to God on the smoke of the incense burning in the censer. I imagine this track being some kind of antidote to ‘Instrument of Evil’.
This single marks your first time in the new premises of Jim Riley's Ranscombe Studio. What's the new place like?
The studio is great - the sound - using my old Mighty Caesars drum kit, and Jim engineering, is pure, easy with a better sound than the old premises.
Any more Guy Hamper Trio releases in the pipeline? A third
album perhaps?
Again, anything is
possible. Me and Jamie (James Taylor, Hammond organ) have talked of writing
together in the future. Jamie is a truly great musician - the cherry on the cake
if you will. We’re just busted old eggs, sour milk, and some
gunk.
A live Guy Hamper Trio show would be amazing. Any chance of that happening or will it remain a studio-based project?
It could happen if someone came up with a very cunning plan.
TRACKLISTING
1. Instrument of Evil 2. Incense Rising From a Censer
Thee Headcoats - I Am The Object Of Your Desire (Black vinyl LP)
RELEASE DATE 26th APRIL 2024
REISSUE OF THEE HEADCOATS’ FINAL ALBUM IN THEIR ORIGINAL INCARNATION!
Originally released by Friends Of The Buff Medway Fanciers Association Records in 2000!
The final studio release by Thee Headcoats (until last year’s Irregularis: The Great Hiatus) gets a long-awaited vinyl reissue!
Includes eleven Billy Childish originals plus a cover of Bo Diddley’s ‘Great Grandfather’!
Recorded at May Road & Red Studios. Engineered by Graham Semark.
I Am the Object of Your Desire - Review from 2000 by Bryan Thomas (All Music)
Thee Headcoats, who put out their first album in 1989, have recorded raw, primordial romps that seem inspired by American Delta blues musicians like Sonny Boy Williamson or the Southern swamp rock of Hasil Adkins, while maintaining a decidedly English sound. They've recorded under a slew of monikers, and issued an amazing discography of full-lengths, EPs, 7"s, and what-have-you for virtually every cool indie label since they formed (including US-based labels like Sub Pop, Get Hip, Sympathy for the Record Industry, and K, among others). Whether he's covering songs with a Bo Diddley beat, garage rock chug, or playing one of his angry young man/dysfunctional family rantings (‘The Day I Beat My Father Up’, for example), Billy Childish has built up a solid and somewhat rabid fanbase by releasing songs that you wouldn't normally think would attract a huge audience to begin with. However, I Am the Object of Your Desire has the distinction of being the last album by this band, as their prolific leader Billy Childish moved on to a new band; they're called the Buff Medways, which is apparently an ancient and now extinct breed of chicken which had feathered legs. It's also the name of the UK imprint this record was released on. This collection kicks right off with the album-titled track reveling in pure Headcoats fashion: that warm, fuzzy vibrato guitar with Childish's fuzzy, electronically distorted voice (an effect repeated throughout the album); Johnny Johnson's soft, flowing bassline; and Bruce Brand's primeval drums. The group keeps this sort of mid-tempo riffage going for the next couple of tracks. Johnson plays a mean harp on ‘Hurt Me (Slight Return)’, but things don't really take off until ‘In a Dead Man's Suit’ and the swaggering, Texas blues ‘Chatham Town Welcomes Desperate Men’. The band's punk roots show up in songs like ‘An Image of You’ and ‘Your Crying Means Nothing to Me’ while ‘Come into My Mind’ has a definite Kinks influence. All in all, an excellent album from this soon to be sadly missed band.
TRACKLISTING
1 – I Am the Object of Your Desire 2 – Hurt Me 3 – An Image of You 4 – In a Dead Man’s Suit
5 – Chatham Town Welcomes Desperate Men 6 – In Blood 7 – Come Into My Mind 8 – Great Grandfather
9 – I’m a Desperate Man 10 – Strange Looking Woman 11 – Your Crying Means Nothing to Me 12 – The Same Tree
Johnny Moped - Quonk! (LP/CD) / Things May Happen 7"
(BOTH FOR RELEASE IN MAY)
