Needle Time

The Ruts - The Crack [OVED 80 UK 1982 24-Bit FLAC] Originally released in 1979. An homage to the mid-price reissue phenomena of the eighties, in fact this alleged repress is possibly a left over from original stocks as Virgin have just scratched out the original catelogue number in the run-off (V 2132) and stamped on the OVED matrix number. Somebody out there may know how Virgin dealt with it's early mid-price reissues. On the record (inside a wonderful sleeve ....spot the celebrity time) you get the classic punk singles Baylon's Burning , Something That I Said plus a personal favourite, Jah War. The Ruts had to deal with a large following amongst right-wing skinheads (whose views the band were totally averse) and were  never really to recover from the death of front man, Malcolm Owen in July 1980. Thanks as ever to penguinflight for donating his vinyl archives to the cause. Play Loud! A1 Babylon's Burning A2 Dope For Guns A3 S.U.S. A4 Something ...

The Jam - All Around The World [2058 903 UK 1977 24-Bit FLAC] Kicking off a splurge of Jam non-album singles from original UK pressings. All Around The World was their second single and is revered as marking the move from punk/new wave into Mod'ism. No more so than on the hip-flip Carnaby Street written and sung by Bruce Foxton. A1 All Around The World B1 Carnaby Street The Jam - News Of The World [2058 995 UK 1978 24-Bit FLAC] This Bruce Foxton composition was never that well received at the time, however in my opinion it is a Jam classic and following its use as a TV theme in the UK, I can only hope that Foxton still gets the revenues he deserves.  For the initiated, until just a few years ago News Of The World was a British tabloid Sunday newspaper which fed the gutter-public hunger for gossip and scandal. Owned by dirty digger , Rupert Murdoch, it had to close when the paper itself became the news and scandal broke out when it was revealed that ...

Rhoda With The Special A.K.A. - The Boiler [CHS TT 18 UK 1982 24-Bit FLAC] Rhoda Dakar from The Bodysnatchers teams up with Jerry Dammers and The Special AKA for the shockingly brutal Boiler . The subject matter was to ensure no radio play and absolutely no Top Of The Pops, however to this day The Boiler remains one of the most important singles in the Two Tone catelogue. Ripped here from penguinflight's original seven inch. A1 The Boiler B1 Theme From The Boiler

The Dickies - Paranoid [AMS 7368 UK 1978 24-Bit FLAC] Very possibly the best Black Sabbath cover you will hear today ...with thanks to the penguinflight archive of 7" singles. Play loud! A1 Paranoid B1 I'm OK, You're OK The Dickies - Banana Splits [AMS 7431 UK 1978 24-Bit FLAC] What Saturday mornings used to be about. Another gem from the penguinflight boxes of vinyl ...on yellow vinyl of course. A1 Banana Splits (The Tra La La Song) B1 Hideous B2 Got It At The Store

De Brassers - 1979-1982 [OS05 BEL 2010 24-Bit FLAC] As promised yesterday, more De Brassers. These chaps have been on constant rotation recently at ESWA Towers however you would need a small fortune to explore their studio recordings, most were just released on self distributed cassettes or very short run vinyl pressings. Thankfully most were compiled on this double vinyl set at the turn of the decade, these two platters themselves becoming highly collectible due to its limited pressing. I'd like to thank a good few of you blog donors who helped fund these two purchases, ripped here for you in 24-bit FLAC. What we get is the debut seven inch single,  En Toen Was Er Niets Meer in its entirety, most of the twelve inch EP released on the Kremlin label in 1981, key segments from the mega rare Leven cassette, the superb Kontrole which featured on a hard-to-find punk compilation album in 1980 and finishing with four tracks from the band's final gig at Zaal Concordia i...

De Brassers - Live At Doornroosje (Nijmegen 1982) [OS21 BEL 2013 24-Bit FLAC] Recorded live onstage in Nijmegen, Netherlands during 1982. I would guess many blog followers will have never come across Belgian post-punk band De Brassers, unless of course you grew up in the low countries in the early eighties. All of you need to hear De Brassers and there is no better place to start with a live album.  The energy given off by this four piece is immense and this live soundboard capture sounds fantastic, originally captured to tape and now on a superb vinyl pressing from quality Belgian label Onderstroom. Yes, they do sound a bit like early Joy Division ...but don't let that put you off! De Brassers studio recordings are very hard to track down, however some of those may well feature over the coming days should you want to hear more. Of course you do! Play loud. A1 Rise & Fall A2 Pijn A3 Last Time A4 They Wanted Us Away A5 Instrumental B1 Sick In Your M...

Hoodlum Priest - Heart Of Darkness [ZTT 4 UK 1990 24-Bit FLAC] Whilst I have never been the greatest fan of white boy rap and what it has become since the original rappers, I do have a mild appreciation of how some artists embraced the genre and took it to new audiences by mixing in samples and heavy electronica. Renegade Soundwave and Meat Beat Manifesto spring to mind as credible masters of the new British sound, and I'd like to add Hoodlum Priest to that list, courtesy of penguinflight 's original vinyl album ripped here for you today.  These days, rap albums wear the parental advisory sticker as a badge of honour, back then it was because the artists just said how it was on the streets of eighties America, Hoodlum Priest weren't from Compton or the projects, they were just two white boys attempting to offend and entertain. Instrumentalist Derek Thompson was once in SPK, rapper Paul Sevier was once better known as Junior Gee. Heart Of Darkness saw a very lim...

Vee VV - Kindest Cut c/w Romance Is Over [7" CRV 54555 UK 1985 24-Bit FLAC] From the ashes of Factory Record's Tunnelvision, came Mancunian post-punks Vee VV. Their debut single was the splendidly packaged double A-sided delight on Robert King's Cathexis Recordings label. Kindest Cut is high velocity Fender-driven indie-pop, whereas the better (imho) Romance Is Over is a solemn and grey Mancunian melancholic melody - that should be enough to sell this to the readership!  A1 Kindest Cut AA Romance Is Over

Drinking Electricity - Overload [SURLP 001 UK 1982 24-Bit FLAC] Another 2019 re-work from my original 24-bit wav files ripped from an original album for your listening pleasure. The minimal synthpop debut (and only) album from Drinking Electricity wasn't well received when released in 1982, but these days is well appreciated and should be regarded as a classic alongside contemporaries like Upstairs At Eric's , Speak & Spell and Colossal Youth . Instrumentalist David Rome uses simplicity and at times low-fidelity to define the Drinking Electricity sound. There are commercial edges to these minimal beats, and even new listeners will find find familiarity in the singles Good Times and Breakout . Whereas the two singles are very much pop-disco in influence, most of the album is intricate and at times sedate. Comparisons to Young Marble Giants are very evident. I am quite pleased with the quality of the overall rip, but you should hear a little background noise...

Modern Eon - Fiction Tales [DID 11 UK 1981 24-Bit FLAC] Another old ESWA rip gets re-worked for 2019. Originally the creatively named Luglo Slugs (hardly a moniker to roll off the tongue), Modern Eon self-released their debut Pieces EP in 1979 before a couple of well received singles on local label Dindisc, of which Euthenics and the anthemic Child's Play are long forgotten post-punk classics. They split soon after during the sessions for their second album. I would say a reissue with all the lost sessions is well overdue. A1 Second Still A2 The Grass Still Grows A3 Playwrite A4 Watching The Dancers A5 Real Hymn A6 Waiting For The Cavalry B1 High Noon B2 Child's Play B3 Choreography B4 Euthenics B5 In A Strange Way B6 Mechanic

Mass - Labour Of Love [CAD 107 UK 1981 24-Bit FLAC] Just in case you feel damaged by that last post.... Very probably the darkest album before goth hit the mainstream, let's call it pre-goth. In reality this is the very darkest of post-punk. Darker than anything else you would imagine from anywhere in Benelux or Italy and Europe's coldest dark waves. Blame Joy Division, they started it ...nobody even came close to the darkest most mysterious corners of post-punk where Mass hung-out. The majority of the four members of Mass came from Rema-Rema and were eventually to become The Wolfgang Press and ....errrrr Renegade Soundwave. This is a reworked and improved version of my original ESWA blog post from February 2016. A1 Mass A2 Why A3 Ill A4 Why A5 Isn't Life Nice B1 Elephant Talk B2 F.A.H.T.C.F. B3 Cross Purposes B4 Innocence

Jethro Tull - Thick As A Brick [CHM 321003 AUS 24-Bit FLAC] The easily outraged need to look away now .....Blogmeister rips and posts a prog-rock album shock! Headlines aside and there are many humorous headlines tucked away inside the St Cleve Chronicle & Linwell Advertiser newspaper concept sleeve, I just thought we needed something a little different to change things up a bit. This is an Australian pressing of the 1972 album by very British folk-rockers Jethro Tull. I found it many moons ago in a charity shop and was happily to hand over a fiver for what seems to be a mint condition copy. The thicker outer sleeve wraps around a 12 page newspaper printed on glossy paper, full of outrageously silly headlines and news stories like the blog post title. Thick As A Brick  represents the Monty Python of concept albums, originally conceived to poke fun at the prog genre itself, consequently becoming one of the best selling of all time. A1 Thick As A Brick B1 Thick As A...