Nothin' But Trash........The Radioactivators,..Random Round Up !

Bit of a mixed bag on this post, a few little bits I thought some of you maybe interested in, some of you may already know and some of you couldn't care less about !

https://www.facebook.com/thexmenspiral

First up is that The X-Men have a Facebook page up since the beginning of the month (Oct 2014) packed full of seldom seen photo's, gig posters and other interesting little gems....Big heads up to Charliespliff for bringing it to my attention. Only a few more weeks to go until they're playing live in 'Pompey'.....Can't wait !

On the subject of the aforementioned Mr Spliff, for a good number of years now he has been hosting a channel (best way of putting it) on YouTube and if you've never found it, not only will you be in for a very pleasant surprise but you'll be blown away by the sheer amount of material he's posted so far,.....it's without doubt my favourite place on YouTube. He's an absolute fanatic about anything 'Medway' and the 'TRASH' scene in general. You'll find unreleased material, demo's and radio sessions as well as rarities and general releases from anyone that's been associated with the whole shebang. Head on over and be prepared to get wigged out : https://www.youtube.com/user/Charliespliff    

Way too much Pastis if you ask me

Another place on the big bad interweb that I find myself way too often is Mr Noonification's blogspot 'Nothin But Trash V2.0'. Earlier on in the year I was shocked and dismayed when I looked in and was confronted with the image of a body on a gurney, tagged 'DECEASED'...One of my favourite blogs had decided to call it a day after 6 or 7 years of bringing some fantastic sounds and introducing me to material which otherwise may have went under the radar. Lots of 60's French (Ye Ye) stuff in addition to all the Garage, Trash and Beat....The great news is that he's back since July, hence the 'V2.0'.....Take a look and he posts regularly almost every week, so you're sure to get your jollies off......and if not, at least your ears will be happy !   http://nothinbuttrash2ndedition.blogspot.ie/

Nigel Lewis & Vince Clarke !!!

Trawling through the vinyl over the weekend and listening to a good few tracks that I hadn't heard in a good while, I pulled out the The Radioactivators 7" (2001) and gave it a spin....nothing odd about that except that this has got to be the strangest, most unlikely collaboration you could imagine !
Nigel Lewis (Original Meteors, The Escalators and The Tall Boys) teaming up with Vince Clarke (of Erasure, Depeche Mode and Yazoo) to knock out some form of 'Electrobilly' ....Mind boggling BUT it's nowhere as near as bad as it sounds ! Granted, the A-side 'Knock On Your Door' has very little in the way of any Electro influences and is just a cool song unmistakably by Nigel Lewis....The B-side is a totally different kettle of fish, entitled 'Bopp' it's an Electro Synth fest, strangely listenable.

 The offending track : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-YLCpfMOPM

 Here's a bit of an explanation of how this weirdness came into being.

'Peanut Butter & Jam released the track, coupled with a B-side ('Bopp'), the same year. Whilst there's little information available about the label, it only ever put out this single, and it was believed to have been supported by Mute. Available only as a 1500 copy limited edition 7" large-centre single, the track feels like an old-time jukebox promo, which is altogether fitting given the style of music here. 'Knock On Your Door' was written by Vince and Phil, with ex-Meteors singer / upright bassist Nigel Lewis providing the vocals. The Meteors claim to be the originators of psychobilly, which successfully fused punk with rockabilly.

In an interview with a German website (psychobilly.de), Lewis explained that the collaboration came about through Kevin Green, the co-songwriter of 'Bopp', here credited as 'K. van Green'. Green was the bassist in a post-Meteors project Tall Boys and also worked on building studios; he had worked on a studio with Clarke, which was presumably his 37B studio in Chertsey. According to the interview, 'Vince said he wanted to make a rock 'n' roll style record so Kev got in touch with me,' said Lewis. 'Kevin more or less produced the sessions. Vince is a very enthusiastic person but I don't think he really understood what I was all about. I remember thinking ''if this isn't a success I'll eat my hat''. I no longer have a hat.'

'We had just started recording the [Family Fantastic] Wonderful album,' explained Phil Creswick to me by email, 'and Vince had met Nigel Lewis a few months earlier. He was so incredibly impressed with him, not just because of his voice and look, but because he lived his whole life as this rockabilly persona. Everything about him was associated with the Fifties and Sixties.'   

This extract was borrowed from a 'Mute' related website called 'Documentary Evidence'

It took me a while to recover after too.......