There was a rhythmic quality to the way Rhythm was always rythm. Clearly we were practicing for text speak and allied to this was our removal of vocabulary - most Deadbeat copies used less than 400 words and most were utilised at least 20 times. Original, beat, ... pulsing was up there, we liked our pulses. There was a lot of dance, dance, dance, to the radio, or even, can't dance, can't dance. Words not often used were Vespa, mobile phone and internet. You tube hadn't made it to our screens and we were only just entering the era of the £50,000 video. I remember when Scars made their video on Arthur's seat etc - that put them up alongside Madness and the other great silent movie makers of the time. Only a short year or two later the budgets were going berserk. The great thing about the early videos is the comedy. There were a whole generation falling out of art school who wanted to shoot shorts or had an idea for a mini movie. The songs proved the perfect fodder, especially the 12" single.
The horror genre often got its own 5 minutes of fame as band after band tried to craft a story board depicting the dark side of their creation but let's face it they were hysterically funny. Deadbeat never got around to doing videos for the tapes until 10 years ago when I discovered some copies of the tapes and proceeded to load them up here. The best is still the strawberry tarts one loaded back around 2010. Enjoy
Not sure how to email you, so here's a query disguised as a comment....
ReplyDeleteI've been working on a Scottish punk/new wave discography of bands that had releases from 1977–84 and came across your three cassettes while doing it. Are all the bands Scottish? Seems like they might be. And thanks for even giving the cities/towns of some of them. Also for the info about Life Support and all their unreleased material—Michael
Hi Michael, all the bands were local to the Scottish scene, sometimes they'd done gigs sometimes they'd only done demos. In the early 80's there were a few who joined up for a demo and then disappeared after 3 months, after falling out or graduating and leaving town! There's a piece entitled 'this vile rapport' that I did in December 2016 where I started putting all the Life Support gigs on it and demos etc. I'm useless at loading stuff on here, I started 8 years ago and I'm not even halfway through this vanity project, but it keeps me amused! I'm easily contacted on twitter - as Fat Al or Vinnybee @fatalovinnybee
ReplyDeleteAM—I have a couple more queries about some real cassette obscurities. Cubic Balloons, nocturnal Vermin, disaster for penguins, Steve Ainsworth, Aztec Recordings. I think you might be the only person who'll even know what I'm talking about. The best way to reach you is through Twitter?—Michael
DeleteThanks! Big help as I run down the real obscurities...1 more band in the Scottish column....
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