Most of these demo tapes are priceless and no price would anyone offer either, but the Deadbeat tapes did try and give a flavour of what came through our post box and many of the bands I never even met, never mind got to see live.
Its always been the great fiction about music.
There are so many more bands making music in your city never mind the country than you'll ever have the chance to listen to across genres and generations.
I loved celebrating them all and that was the inspiration behind deadbeat.
As time went by I would spend more time on the 'next tape' and DB4 was the only thing keeping the fanzine thought going in my head in 1986.
DB2 came out in the summer of 1984 and DB3 spring of 1985.
We never made DB4, funny how tinnitus got in the way!
The precursor to the tapes was a flexi disc issue with Pop Wallpaper and Wild Indians on our 1st Anniversary with issue 17 (pictured above).
There's stuff on discogs about the tapes with links where the bands have more music after they were
http://www.mediafire.com/?zjmyy68licz44zm
Link above to Deadbeat 1 - The bands and where they came from and if I have an address for you - as if you cant google it yourself.....
Strawberry Tarts (Edinburgh) http://www.myspace.com/jeremythoms
Twisted Nerve lots on discogs
Burlesque
Life Support (St Andrews/Dundee)
Sunset Gun (Glasgow) (Louise and Deirdrie Rutkowski and http://www.louiserutkowski.co.uk) or see the releases on CBS during 85-88.
Sluaghterhouse 5 (Glasgow)
Wild Indians (Edinburgh - https://youtu.be/hsh8FOJypIQ )
Deadbeat 2
Dancing Bears (Edinburgh) http://venuesandbands.com/bands/Richie_Paul
Napalm Start http://www.myspace.com/napalmstars and also
Circus of Hell (Dundee)
Kitchen Raiders
Autumn 1904
The Very Thing
The Invitation (Edinburgh)
Monument 14
Strawberry Tarts
The Government
Rhythm System (Les Gaff, Glasgow)
The Men Men (David Wells & Graham Samson, Glasgow)
TheSwirle
Pulsebeat Plus (Dundee)
Crossfire
The Relations (Perth) 2 of 3 on youtube https://youtu.be/TJtbcyS3e3I
https://youtu.be/tBHOJUOaynw
Splash me I'm Drowning
From November 1983 the first tape became available and Jeremy Thoms from the Strawberry Tarts, (now Cathode Ray), myself and Keith were busy copying them.
To this day I can only guess how many we made but we gave the bands copies sold a few and took some down to the A & R folk and they kept sending us records so the world was a happy place.
More tapes followed through the post and it wasn't long until DB2 was in production.
We did a mixture of getting them made elsewhere and doing them ourselves.
DB3 was mass produced from the off. We took the plunge and sent the master off and got them made for about £1 and sold them for £2.
As with the previous tapes the bands got copies the A & R guys got more copies as I went down to see a few as well as the radio stations.
Living the dream, it wasn't long until I was lying in my deck chair with a bottle in hand.
I like all three tapes and they're all very different. There are snippets on the website if you go back to posts in early 2011.
To this day I can only guess how many we made but we gave the bands copies sold a few and took some down to the A & R folk and they kept sending us records so the world was a happy place.
More tapes followed through the post and it wasn't long until DB2 was in production.
We did a mixture of getting them made elsewhere and doing them ourselves.
DB3 was mass produced from the off. We took the plunge and sent the master off and got them made for about £1 and sold them for £2.
As with the previous tapes the bands got copies the A & R guys got more copies as I went down to see a few as well as the radio stations.
Thanks for the writeup. Do you happen to have any links to clips from Deadbeat 2?
ReplyDeleteyou'll find video shorts eg dancing bears and the men men in 'short cuts to earlier posts, february' cheers, Vinny
DeleteThanks Vinny, found them.
DeleteDo you check discogs mail? I have a query for you given your expertise in this era.
Still working on a digital DB2 but I've loaded a few videos onto the discogs page. Hopefully have been loaded here too soon but I'm so busy with lockdown!
DeleteBTW you should look into carefully digitizing these tapes and remit to archive.org with insert art scans of course! Already lots of cassette, punk, zine history preserved there for media historians.
ReplyDeleteThe three tapes were and are still superb. Still listen to them -Albiet digitally now.
ReplyDeleteFeel free to share them James!
ReplyDeleteI've still to load number 2 up here so if you have a link we could use. I was hoping to load on discogs
I remember all this stuff really well. I was in one of the bands, the Invitation, knew Jeremy Thoms as well. Loved Deadbeat.
ReplyDeleteI'm putting together a 40 year anniversary for 2022 of where are they now! it should be a laugh and the Invitation will definitely get an Invitation!
DeleteHey I listened to Deadbeat one from this link and it's great, just wondering about one track in between "Days of Long Shadows" and "Influence of Love" that doesn't seem to be on the tracklist. It's an acoustic track with just guitar and vocals and I can't tell if it's some hidden track or if it's part of one of the other tracks
ReplyDeleteI think that'll be the Rhyme Tray, aka Paul and Derek. Paul Milner plays with a band in London now, it finishes with "we met at the corner of bell st...." I used to scrawl on the insert *bonus track if there was enough space on the tape to add it! Not all C60's were the same length...
ReplyDeleteHello. Just found this wonderful site tonight, by accident. I was a bass player with Circus in Hell - #tape two (and later the Junkies). Sadly lost my original tape a few years back (along with many others). So glad someone is keeping these memories alive. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThanks Mr A, I've great memories of watching many versions of circus of hell and their predecessors the Dum Dum Boys. Its 40 years ago we started this and it still makes me chuckle as every typo I ever made brings another memory alive. I listen to the tapes all the time as it was the best thing about the fanzine. I'm not sure many got deals on the back of it but we hawked them around the A & R guys and it was always good craic going down to London with the latest tape. I've done the odd video over the years with the songs, probably around 2011/12 but I've got to load a link for DB2 this year....oh and do those interviews of "40 years on...where are they now"
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