Modern Eon - Part 1

The Modern Eon was a part of the "New Liverpool Scene" that sprang up in 1979-1980 around 'Eric's Club'. But, unlike all other bands gravitating around the club (Echo & the Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes, Dead or Alive, Pink Military, etc.) Modern Eon “always stayed clear of the typical Liverpool connection”. The founding members Alix Plain (Alex Johnson) and Danny Hampson started the group in the late '70s, originally under the name of Luglo Slugs, then Tank Time, One Two and finally Modern Eon.
Their first release appeared on a compilation (Steet to Street: A Liverpool Album, vol I) in November 1978:

Benched Down/ 70s Sixties
The band was:

Alex Plain (aka Alex Johnson): vox, guitars
Danny Hampson: bass, b-vox
Ged Allen: guitar, b-vox

In 1979 the lineup expanded:
Alix Plain: vox
Danny Hampson: bass, b-vox
Ged Allen: guitar, b-vox
Joey McKechnie: drums

The band released the self-released EP:

Pieces:
- Second Still (different from the album version)

- Waiting for the Cavalry

- Choreography (different from the album version)

- The Look a Smack

In 1981 the band was again restructured:
Alix Plain: vox
Danny Hampson: bass, b-vox
Bob Wakelin: synth, and
Tim Lever – future Dead or Alive member: on guitar and sax,
The new lineup reshapes the band’s sound into something more original, updated and distinctive, releasing the single

Euthenics:
- Euthenics (different from the album version)
- Waiting for the Calvary (different from the album version)
(the single was then re-released the same year, backed by Cardinal Sign instead of Calvary)


In the same year the 17 year old Cliff Hewitt joined the band on drums, and this line up released two more singles (Child’s Play and Mechanic) the LP Fiction Tales, and toured the country, before the new recruit got injuried his wrists, and his drumming was sampled for the rest of the tour (supporting The Stranglers).


Fiction Tales
1. Second Still

2. The Grass Still Grows

3. Playwrite

4. Watching The Dancers

5. Real Hymn

6. Waiting For The Cavalry

7. High Noon8. Child's Play

9. Choreography

10. Euthenics

11. In A Strange Way

12. Mechanic

The end of 1981 found Modern Eon at work on demos for a second album but sadly the banded folded before releasing a follow up album.

(see: http://www.soulsaw.com/modern-eon/bio1.htm )

Pink Industry - Part 3

Over the years 82-84 Pink Industry released 4 Peel sessions.
Here you find the last one, recorded on 4-25-84 (broadcast 5-8-84), and performed by the original trio: Jayne Casey (Vocals); Ambrose (Bass, Keyboards, Cello); Tadzio Jodlowski (Guitar).


1984 Peel Session

- Pain Of Pride

- No Defence

- Piano Ping

- Don't Let Go

In 1995, more than a decade after their split, the band released the retrospective collection

New Naked Technology

1. Pain Of Pride
2. Cowboy Track
3. State Of Grace
4. Two Cultures
5. Walk Away
6. The Corpse
7. No Defense
8. New Beginnings
9. Savage
10. Enjoy the Pain
11. Stand Alone
12. Time For Change
13. Elevator Operator
14. Empty Beach
15. What I Wouldn't Give
16. Anyone's Fashion
17. Is This the End?
18. Cruel Garden
19. Don't Let Go
20. Bound By Silence
21. Time Is A Thief
22. Extreme
23. The Raft
24. I Wish

previously unreleased : tracks 2,13 and 21

'New Beginnings' LP : tracks 1,3,6,7,8,11,15 and 20

'Who Told You, You Were Naked?' LP : tracks 4,5,12,16,22 and 23

'Low Technology' LP : tracks 9,10 and 24

'What I Wouldn't Give' EP : track 14

'Forty-Five' EP : tracks 17 and 19

'Cruel Garden' EP (unreleased EP) : track 18

Pink Industry - Part 2

After the release of ‘Low Technology’ the duo added to their line-up Tadzio Jodlowski. The creative dynamic within the band did not change, as Casey points out: “Ambrose and I used to write the basis of the song, then Tadzio would put in his bit”, yet, as can be heard in the recordings “Tadzio's guitar was really important”. Casey's vocals on the later records sound as big improvement whereas the music turned more towards “textured layers of electronics”. Neither of the two LP which saw the light (“Who Told you You were Naked?” and “New Beginnings”) received the public recognition that they deserved, and within a couple of year the group folded, with Casey, bored with the what became of the whole post-punk music scence, moving towards the then budding house scene.

Here’s story in Casey’s own words

-Pink Industry sounded quite ahead of their time.

JC: Yeh, I liked Pink Industry because it got a bit closer to the mark, but again the technology wasn't there. So you'd spend days doing a sample which now would take two minutes to do. Pink Industry was nearer because we'd got rid of all the rock elements by then.
[…]

- Why do you think Pink Industry never got the recognition it deserved? Were you too ahead of your time?

JC: I think it wasn't developed enough. People used to compare us to the Cocteaus or New Order, those were the bands who were playing with electronic music at that time, and with different voice sounds, but they were far more developed than we were. We never really got past the experimental stage. There were some nice songs in there, but they were sort of basic, very experimental.

[…]

- The indie scene at that time was quite stale.

JC: The indie scene was rock bottom at that stage. It was horrible, the bands had been around for ages, it was going nowhere. It only started to happen again when dance music happened. And then it took on a new life. But up until that point, it was just so boring. I'd done it, I'd done it to death.

(see http://ilx.wh3rd.net/thread.php?msgid=1544102 )

Who Told You, You Were Naked? (1983)
A1 Walk Away
A2 Not Moving
A3 Urban Jazz
A4 Fear Of Failure
A5 Anyone's Fashion
A6 Situation
B1 Two Culture's
B2 Extreme
B3 The Raft
B4 This Is The Place
B5 The Only One
B6 Time For Change

New Beginnings (1985)
A1 New Beginnings
A2 Pain Of Pride
A3 Bound By Silence
A4 State Of Grace
A5 Piano Ping
B1 Empty Beech
B2 The Corpse
B3 Fifty Five
B4 What I Wouldn't Give
B5 No Defence
B6 Stand Alone

Peter Coyle - Lambs To The Slaughter (a.k.a. Selfish, 1985)

In Peter Coyle’s words:
“At the end of The Lotus Eaters the pressure had taken its toll. The very thing I worked hard to avoid had happened. The idea of building something up to just fall down felt like such a waste. I was very demoralised and down. I was totally devastated and in no state for anything. If it wasnt for Pete Davies I would have probably stayed in that state. Pete Davies was the manager for The Lotus Eaters. I didnt really feel able to be involved in planet earth never mind the music business.In 1985 after The Lotus Eaters I started working with David Hughes who later formed a band with Thomas Lang. We recorded a whole new album of songs called First Days and started gigging. But it kind of fell apart after a year or so. This was my first music that was released under my name. I released an EP called Selfish. Unfortunately the record was banned by most of the shops because there was a pencil drawing of a woman masturbating on the cover. Maybe if the drawing was of a woman killing or being violent there would have probably been no problem. Anyway I wrote Yours The Spirit That Soared with Gerald Quinn. I was finding new ways of writing songs. I was becoming more confident writing music as well as the words.”(http://www.petercoyle.com/bio.html )

Lambs To The Slaughter (a.k.a. Selfish)
1. Yours, The Spirit That Soared
2. Everyone Knows
3. Closer
4. Shattered

Pink Industry - Part 1

By the end of the year 1980, after the release of ‘Do animals Believe in God?’, Jayne Casey’s discontent/unease with Pink Military started to come to the surface: after experimenting whatever was possible at the time, the traditional band structure guitar-bass-drums (despite the mobility of the members) was perceived as an obstacle to Casey’s creativity, forcing all possible inspiration to have to comply with rock’n’roll standards. Casey was more keen on technology and experimentation.
In the same period, Ambrose Reynolds was looking for something different. After the split of the school band the O’Boogie Brothers (1976-77), where he played together with Ian Broudie, Ambrose and ex-members of that same band (Nathan McGough on vocals, and Jon Moss on drums) teamed up with Wayne Hussey to form the short-lived act Walkie Talkies (June 1978- Nov. 79). After that, for a short period of time he played bass with Nightmares in Wax, before joining forces with Holly Johnson, Phil Hurst (ex co-member in NIW), and later Steve Lovell recording demos under the name of Hollycaust. The band changed the name to Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and changed line-up as well, when Johnson recruited Brian Nash on guitar and Peter Gill on drums - with whom he had briefly played in 1981 under the name of Dancing Girls – to form the Sons of Egypt, the nucleus of what would become a year later Frankie Goes to Hollywood as we know it.
Casey and Ambrose teamed at the end of 1981. The duo combined the "anything goes" ethics of post-punk with experimental electronics, they produced a very laid-back, spacious, liquid music, combining textured layers of electronics, simple bass-lines and drum machine, ages before Massive Attack. In the beginning other contributors came and left with some frequency (especially when needed to record their first BBC Peel session), but soon the group established their line-up as a duo, exploiting Ambrose ability as multi-instrumentalist.
And as a duo they produced (on their own Zulu Records):

Forty-five EP (Feb 1982)

- Is This The End
- 47
- Don't Let Go
- Final Cry


New Technology (1983)

- I Wish
- New Aims
- Don't Let Go
- Creaking Doors
- Enjoy The Pain
- Savage
- Send Them Away
- Remove The Stain
- Heavenly
- Is This The End

Dead or Alive – Early singles, EPs, Peel Sessions

After releasing the first single in 1980 I’m Falling (b/w Flowers, see previous posts), the same line-up - Joe Musker (Drums), Sue Bagton-James (Bass), Marty / Mandingo Healy (Keyboards), Adrian Mitchley (Guitar), Pete Burns (Vocals) – recorded their first BBC ONE Peel Session (recorded 04/02/1981, broadcast 17/02/1981). The tracklist for that session was:

- Nowhere To Nowhere
- Running Wild
- Flowers
- Number 11

The last song of those sessions would be their next single, released only a few months later, in May 1981:

- Number Eleven
- Namegame (b/w)

Here information is a little blurred. DOA biographers state that this 1981 single was the first to feature the new line-up, including Wayne Hussey (later Sisters of Mercy and Mission) on guitar, Mike Percy on bass and Steve Coy on drums, whereas according to the man’s biographers, Hussey joined the band only for their EP It’s Been Hours Now, released in February 1982. In fact, despite the guitar sound slightly reminiscent of the early Sisters of Mercy, the song was already there before Hussey joined, see the 1981 BBC sessions. The new EP is instead characterised by a distinctively different sound: Hussey’s typical guitar soundscapes, tribal rhythms (overwhelming at the time –Adam and the Ants, Bow Wow Wow, Slits, etc.).


- It's Been Hours Now
- Whirlpool
- Nowhere to Nowhere
- It’s Been Hours Now 2

A couple of weeks later, the same line-up – Pete Burns (Vocals), Joe Musker (Drums), Mike Percy (Bass), Wayne Hussey (Guitar), Mandingo Healy (Keyboards) – recoded their second BBC ONE Peel Session (recorded 01/03/1982, broadcast 18/03/1982):

- Misty Circles (Part 1)
- Misty Circles (Part 2)
- Number 12
- Untitled

After the recording of the sessions, drummer Steve Coy joined the band, which, according to what seems to have become a standard (!), released the last tack recorded during the Peel sessions: Untitled, in fact, is the provisional (no) title of the next single, released in May 1982 (which features the same guitar pattern that will surface some years later in the Mission’s Tower of Strength single):

- The Stranger
- Some of That (b/w)

Two months later Dead Or Alive were signing to the Epic label. The rest is history. A series of singles appeared over the course of 1983, including "Misty Circles" and "What I Want” all of which then collected in DOA’s first album Sophisticated Boom Boom (1983). Hussey soon exited, and it was a line-up comprising Burns, Percy, new member Tim Lever on keyboards and drummer Steve Coy which scored Dead or Alive's first major hit, a 1984 cover of KC and the Sunshine Band's disco classic "That's the Way (I Like It)" which fell just shy of reaching the British Top 20.

Part 1
Part 2

Big in Japan - Vinyl, demos & live

Before getting to The Pink Industry, here’s something more about Big in Japan. Some vinyl rips of already known/published material followed by some demos and live versions of the songs. The bonus track is not a Big in Japan’s cut but the b-side to their 1977 split single ‘Brutality, Religion and a dance Beat’ (side A: Big in Japan’s ‘big in japan’ – side B: the Chuddy Nuddies’ (pseudonym for the Yachts) ‘do the chud’).

Big in Japan - Vinyl, demos & live
Tracklist:

1. Big In Japan (Vinyl)
2. Nothing Special (Vinyl)
3. Cindy And The Barbi Dolls (Vinyl)
4. Suicide A Go Go (Vinyl)
5. Taxi (Vinyl)
6. Match Of The Day (Vinyl)
7. Society For Cutting Up Men (Vinyl)
8. Society For Cutting Up Men (Demo)
9. Boys Cry (Demo)
10. Big In Japan (Demo)
11. Space Walk (Demo)
12. Match Of The Day (Demo)
13. Taxi (Demo)
14. Suicide A Go Go (Granada TV 23.3.78)
15. (Bonus): Do The Chud: The Chuddy Nuddies