wake up

I still haven't had a proper listen to all the discs in the Essential Logic box set but there is one notable omission to the compilation - this EP. I gather (actually I think I read it in the book in the box, but I probably knew it already) this was released on Virgin as the group's first release as-a-group (as opposed to a hastily assembled studio project, see below) and then almost instantaneously withdrawn after objection from Disney, who own the copyright on the cover image. Apparently there was no will to reissue the record with a different sleeve or anything like that. Two of the songs were rerecorded for the Beat Rhythm News LP, and the other two remain exclusive to this release.

I once owned the 12" but I don't anymore, as far as I can tell, I don't know what happened there. I have the 7" version (tracks are identical). What I was surprised to find via discogs was that the 12" is really common, or at least, very cheap to buy even now 43 years later, but the 7" is quite rare. 

This is my copy of the first EL single 'Aerosol Burns'. It is what it is. I mean, it is pretty good. Apparently Lora Logic just made it up on the spot and claims it was all recorded in a couple of hours from completely spontaneous 'go into the studio, do what feels right' situation. I do really like that story of her being sacked from X Ray Spex and someone or other tracking her down and giving her a few bob to just make a record. I'm really glad that happened. 

Today is a horrendously hot day, and I'm stuck indoors for the foreseeable in a situation where even though it's more or less bearable in the house, any activity makes one hot and uncomfortable. Fuck it. 

 

logically yours

So the Essential/Lora Logic box set Logically Yours showed up today. It cost a lot and as I might already have whinged here (whingeing about myself, self-whingeing) it was a stupid purchase insofar as I already own everything on it except the new album. But I did it anyway, just I suppose to affirm my support for a group/individual whose work has meant a staggering amount to me for about forty years, ever since I bought a copy of 'Music is a Better Noise' in I can't remember where but possibly Readings in Lygon St back when there was a special Readings record store separate from the bookstore, on the east side of the street. I bought that single entirely on the basis of the sleeve, and with completely no knowledge of what the content would be like: I had never heard of the group, let alone heard anything by them or had any knowledge of Lora Logic's background. My favourite singles are that, 'Eugene' and 'Popcorn Boy', actually I think 'Popcorn Boy' would be one of my two or three favourite songs ever. Because it's madness. 

I have looked at the albums, there are five, the original Beat Rhythm News and the LL solo album Pedigree Charm (which started life, it would seem, as the second Essential Logic album but then the group fell apart); a singles compilation which I think doesn't actually include everything originally recorded by the group; an LP of material recorded by LL under the EL name about twenty years ago in that staggeringly strange line-up including someone who'd been in Bad Manners and a former member of Blondie (I mean where people come from doesn't really matter but still, weird). And then the new album. And I have also read the booklet which comes with the albums, identified at least one bizarre error (there's always going to be at least one bizarre error - it's obligatory - in this case, it's giving the name of the Stranglers album LL played on, to the Raincoats album she played on. The Stranglers album is also correctly identified elsewhere so go figure).* 

They've also done this to Beat Rhythm News which is peculiar. Here's the back cover of the box set version:

Apart from being monochrome rather than blue and black, it's substantially altered from the original:

I mean in one sense, the odd black shape over LL's profile on the original is, yeah, odd, but I can't really see much point in making the change overall. The picture they've put in its place is a bit of a nothing picture (presumably from absolutely the same session, at least, she's got the same hat on, and when I say 'she', it doesn't actually even really look like her, but I guess it must be!) and then there are four different logos on there. 

I suppose I should do something dweeby like play the new pressing and see if it sounds different though these reissues don't discuss any particular remastering, I don't think Giles Martin had a go at it or anything. I may get around to that. Right now I'm still as they say post-covid and getting headaches and forgetting things so I don't think it'd be wise to embark on anything so ambitious. 

* To be entirely clear, I am aware these kinds of things happen and it doesn't matter how. Easy enough to make mistakes of this nature. 

manicured noise

This is such a great compilation album. It came out years ago (six years ago) and no-one told me. I am very happy to have got a copy recently. 

Forty years and a few months ago I had a big bunch of money, and for whatever reason I bought a few singles that proved to be highly influential in my tastes and interests ever after. Import singles were quite expensive (I don't remember how much, under $5 probably, but that was quite expensive then) and I really went with my instincts, but I am sure someone somewhere was mediating on my behalf (I don't remember where I was buying from though). Three things I recall buying that particular day, probably around August-September 1980, were Essential Logic's 'Music is a Better Noise', a record that is not my favourite Essential Logic record (that's probably 'Eugene') but I love all that band's output; I'm So Hollow's 'Dreams to Fill the Vacuum', a transparent vinyl single in a plastic see-through sleeve; and Manicured Noise's single 'Metronome'. In each case I knew absolutely nothing about these bands, and I mean nothing. NO THING. I had not heard of any of them! I liked the idea of 'Manicured Noise' as the name for a group. I liked the cover too:

Loved it then, love it now. Still have it (somewhere). The group is funky in that way that we now call post-punk and Steven Walsh - who apparently wasn't in the band when it formed but, in the nicest possible way (or rather, in the absence of anyone else) joined, took it over and made it essentially his own - sings in a slightly strangulated but articulate and smart way. It bugs me that more than one person has compared them to Talking Heads, which I kind of get but I don't like getting it. I mean the comparison is more than 'both bands had a really competent female bass player (Jodee Taylor in MN's case) who kind of defined their sound'. Although in the case of Manicured Noise the definition comes also from a really solid drummer in Stephanie Nuttall and a very busy, overbusy, superlatively excellent saxophone player in Peter Bannister. 

So the album above collects the sum total, apparently, of what MN recorded in their time (I just realised that in obtaining the vinyl version I diddled myself out of six more tracks on the CD, however, all tracks are on spotifuck so that's fine). (My favourite track is 'Payday', particularly the bit where they turn the bass up). 

The weirdest part of the story is, apparently, can this even be true? very soon after the band split up Stephanie Nuttall went to - I'm still not sure I believe this - Buenos Aires and either joined or formed a group called Sumo. That's one thing. But is this really a picture of her in that group?! 

I mean maybe it is. The discogs listing says that Sumo were a very influential band ('Considered one of the most influential bands of the Argentine 80s. ' - easy to say) but Stephanie Nuttall doesn't play on any of their records and indeed they didn't make a record until 1983 it would seem. If she was a member of this band then I guess I need to go and find some kind of emoji to express how weirded out I feel about this picture and the unknowableness of this story. Here's another picture of her though which indicates that she was definitely amongst the coolest looking drummers of 1980 (she was also a really solid and brilliantly inventive drummer as evidenced by the record). 

But I am still confused to what extent she was a member of Sumo, or I suppose more importantly what she did next and how she went to BA. There is a person on fb who loves Argentina, is called Stephanie Nuttall and had her picture taken sometime this century with the man who plays drums on most Sumo records, so I guess it's just something that happened.* 

(Incidentally basically no-one in MN did anything really prominent again. I have a 12" record Steven Walsh made under the name The Weatherman, but it's a little too 'straight' for my liking atm. I remember hearing once that he lived in Australia for a long time.)

* A comment on this page from 2015 reads (translated by fb): 'She is the first female drummer in Argentina and should be received as such, what memories of those beginnings of sumo by god, besides her parents did well to take her when the war broke out, there are many lunatics in Argentina.'