It's Almost Sunny

Sigh. Another day another post or two. I plan on going back and redoing a few of these damn vinyl rips which skip when they shouldn't. I can't imagine that I was so inattentive to not notice a record hopping around like a frog on a hotplate, but apparently I must have been. I do have to say a recent acquisition of an anti-static record mat has seemed to help immensely in this regard. If there's a particularly egregiously bad rip, please leave a comment and I'll give it a do over next time I'm mucking about with this crud.


1. Disco Pope
2. Nothing
3. TV Set
4. Nobody Noticed

The Prats looks like they average about 12 years old in the picture on the back of this little gem and sound just as primitive and wonderful as you'd expect. They do believe in the Disco Pope and may incline you to do the same. They're an odd little Scottish analog to Red Cross (or maybe Hanson) only they've got a bit of a social conscience with a very teenage treatise on the plight of the poor in "Nobody Noticed" which must have seemed very deep to them at the time. (Rather than singing songs about tits and Linda Blair like those naughty McDonald brothers.) I just dig the beat. Yet another fine example of the genius of the early Rough Trade sensibilities.




1. General Davis
2. The Alliance

A year on and a whole lot of puberty later and it seems they've added an actual girl to the line up (having perhaps finally coming to an understanding that cooties is not a communicable condition in females) and gotten a few more effects pedals and skills under their collective belts. A tad less charming than the previous single as they stumble in to that awkward adolescent recording stage where you want to be taken seriously as "artists". Perhaps if they'd survived high school as a band they might have gone on to bigger and better things and written proper pop songs about the soulful yearning a young man feels deep within himself when he needs to get properly laid. It sounds a bit better to me today than I remembered it, but they do grow up so fast.




1. Come Back to Me
2. Misfit

Bok Bok is a band featuring Steve Garvey who had been in the Buzzcocks and Karl Burns who at the time was still playing with the Fall. (an early incarnation of the band called the Teardrops also featured former Fall member Tony Friel) A veritable Mancurian Supergroup of minor type proportions. It's sort of Power Pop. Both tracks written by Mr. Burns with the vocalist Dave Price. They're rather ok. I find them the sort of songs that I quite enjoy while they're playing and then almost immediately forget when the needle lifts.


1. Gee George
2. Love is the Drug

I really couldn't find much info on this one. From the photo on the back cover one would rather expect some kind of neo-rockabilly skiffle group instead of the post-punk musings that ooze out of your speakers and owe more than a little bit to Joy Division (seriously guys, you're not fooling anyone you know.). The b-side is the Roxy Music song you think it is. This one is definitely a comp. worthy addition to your listening pleasures.