Details

Classification: EP
Label: Creation Records
Catalogue: 8721832
Date: 1988
Recorded: May 88, Greenhouse, (Spooky); 5 Jun 88, Studio 13, CBC (rest)
Engineered: Iain O'Higgins, (Spooky); Richard and Yves (rest)
Production: Iain O'Higgins, (Spooky); Kevin Komoda (rest)
Photography: Mitch Jenkins, Barbara Taylor, Berry Carrington

Spooky (Extended Version)
The Best Way (Edgar Wallace Mix)
Blame
Spooky (Single Version) (Compact Disc only)
(The rest recorded at CBC and only available on the CD...)
Whitfield, Sarah & The Birchfield Road Affair
Sex Engine
Blame (It On The Libyans)
Girl-Go
Grey Flannelette

The Players

Pat Fish (Vocals, Guitar)
Paul Mulreany (Drums)
Laurence O'Keefe (Bass)
Kizzy O'Callaghan (Guitar)
Alex Green (Saxophone)
Kevin Komoda (Organ)
Brent Bambury (Backing Vocals)

While I'm here, many thanks to all who came to see us on our visit this summer. Thanks for making us so welcome. Our apologies to people in Toronto for the awful sound at the concert there: there really wasn't anything we could do. Sorry! Oh, and to "The Unnamed Journalist" in Winnipeg we say: if you want to slag off Robyn Hitchcock, wait 'till he plays there, meathead!!! To the rest of you, very best regards 'till next time. Love, The Butcher XX.

Howdy!! Welcome to the J.B.C release. Thanks for the money. We'll be spending it on weapons and drugs. The first thing that you have to understand about this disc is that it is not an L.P.: it is a single and a radio session nailed together for your amusement.

The single is on side A and was recorded in May 1988 at "The Greenhouse" in London. It was recorded by Iain O'Higgins and features Mulreany on drums, O'keefe on bass, Kizzy on guitar, Alex on sax, and me on the rest. Except for The Best Way which features Bhang & Olafssen on bass & drums respectively. Confused? You ain't heard nothing yet. (Black betty, bam-ba-lam-ooh-babee a-wop-ba-ba-loo bop-sha-la-la na-na-na-na early-in-the-morning whoa-dubious-lou-etc.)

The radio interference may be found on side b, and was manufactured on 5th June/Juin '88. It was engineered by Richard and Yves, and produced by the very wonderful Kevin Komoda with me breathing hotly down his very patient neck. Mulreany, O'Keefe, Kizzy and I play and sing with a cameo appearance from Kevin on organ on Girl-Go.

I hope you dig the noises on this record. That is, after all, the reason for our making them.

In March & April of '88 the Fishpower J.B.C. was on tour in europe. One of the great attractions of Eurotrucking is the hour-or-so of dancing to be had between packing up the noise-boxes after the show and driving back to the hotel to get profoundly twisted. This year, however, we found a severe shortage of suitable frugging material and so, on our return to the green unpleasant land, we set about recording our own "Dance Record." The result is this, you own J.B.C "Acid Shed" version of Classix Four's Spooky. The idea is that you turn it up very loud indeed and thrash about in a carefree fashion until it stops. Check it, as they say, out.

In a similar vein comes the Edgar Wallace mix of The Best Way, a rap which originally appeared on the indisposible Fishcotheque L.P. This version, specifically aimed at Italian discotheques, was set down through a haze of paracetemol, codeine & Red Stripe Lager in defiance of the most apalling toothache known to mankind, May '88 model. My thanks to the revolting O'Higgins for some serious mix magick. Linguistic note: "Edgar Wallace" is surrealist rhyming slang for "serious."

I don't know how it is with you (I lose the capacity to read or write after 16 hours of touring) but one of our "great" British cultural institutions is the vile, gutless, tabloid gutter-press. Hence Blame, a savagely twisted glance in the direction of those idiotic "68-88" retrospectives that were filling up the space between oral-retentive breast displays and vicious anti-homosexual/drug/human dignity tirades this summer. Oh, ask your mum, then...

Mulreany soirs me up, giggles, and points out that the chords to Whitfield, Sarah & The Birchfield Road Affair would be quite at home in the epicene Steve Miller's Take The Money And Run. He's right, of course, but then we never get to hear records like that in my town. As it goes, neither Whitfield of Sarah ever lived in Birchfield Road, but I did, so I know what I'm talking about. Those upset by Sarah's gratuitous demise towards the end of this unpleasant little narrative will be relieved to learn that she re-appears, alive & well, albeit with a change of name, in the story An Idea Of Europe, gathering dust in a bookstore near you some time in the next ten years. (The white shirt is important.)

Sex Engine is a slice of insulting cak with an interesting ending. The tall, dark & easily-blackmailed Brent Bambury appears on backing vocals. Skinny Puppy fans get writing. And thanks for the liquor, guys... We don't really think you have anything at all in common with Bruno Gerussi...

And, well I never, here's another version of Blame. Without the civilising influence of Alex "Savage But Reasonable" Green (already suitably humiliated for absence on Canadian dates during the previous summer) or the supertechnopower hot Casio SK-1, this really does start to get ugly. Which is just as it should be, really. Did you ask your mum yet? No, well, it's a bit of a problem, I agree. Why not just fucking educate yourself instead? Girl-Go is for my friend Phil (ip of Walshingham) Parfitt, singer & writer with The Perfect Disaster and class A-! human being. It is about a number of things, with special emphasis on the popular chord "E". Listen and pass out.

Just don't forget to come round for Grey Flannelette. This is my favourite recording on this side, owing partly to Paul & Laurence's zoom groove. (That's Laurence on ash-trays, train-spotters.) What started out as an innocent-enough Mary Perry joke on Bath Of Bacon (the "real" first L.P.) took an ugly turn when somebody wrote in and told me that it had actually happened to a friend of his. So then it went like this. Yuk. Grrrr.