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Archive 04
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76 - 100
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Here
you will gain exclusive access to my own personal record collection! I
try to bring you mp3s of rare tracks, deleted material, long forgotten
artists, total flops and down right obscure shit. Often, my choices were
only available on vinyl or were just plain unreleased, the aim being to
indulge an old fan or inspire a new one. I try not to post up
forthcoming releases or anything that's too readily available. Honest,
Gov!
There's a tenuous thread running through the tracks but
your requests are always welcome and I'll try and squeeze them in amongst my
own fancies... eventually.
Do read all the blurb, as there's often links to extra tracks lurking in
there... ; )
Tracks are only available for a 'limited
time' folks (sometimes months!), so get them while you can!
Now for the science bit! To access the music, please click on 'Download' and
you'll be whisked off to those nice people over at Sharebee.
Tracks are ripped at 192 kbps and wherever possible taken from the
highest quality source available. All of the music offered here has been
purchased by myself and is part of my own collection. Tracks are for
evaluation purposes only and wherever possible, purchasing is always
encouraged. If you own any of the material posted here or anywhere else
on this site and are very cross with me, please
email me with threats and such like...
Now, I spent hours deliberating over what was to be the 100th download
posted here and, well, this is all I could come up with. Still, it is
The International House Of Pussy's
unofficial theme tune and therefore quite rightly, it marks a wee landmark
for my little place on the web. We hope you will all raise a Babycham-filled
glass and celebrate with myself, Patrick
and Honor
as we acknowledge 100
glorious copyright infringing free mp3's brought to you, the
Pussy fan, all the way from the middle
of nowhere by me, Anfunny. May there be
many 100s more for you to enjoy! Thanks to each and every one of you for
your kind words and support. These songs are my gift to you. Cheers!
Sneaker Pimps stupidly showed singer
Kelli Ali
the (cupboard) door
(apparently, all the vocals for their debut album were recorded in a
cupboard in one of the lads' bedrooms) in 1999. They'd just had a wealth of
critical and commercial success for debut album 'Becoming X',
their dark trip-hop masterpiece, and Kelli
had been the focus point, with her sweet and sinister coo haunting every
single note. When the band ditched her and the male guitarist
Chris started singing instead, someone
should have really told them to stop. Without Kelli,
they were fucked. They've had no further success since her departure and I
hope she feels good about that. Anyway, I wish I could say
Kelli herself went on to have a string
of solo hits, but she too has practically dropped off the radar since the
1990s. The crazy thing is, her solo stuff is great! I hope you'll agree when
you hear this, the lead single from her exotic debut solo album 'Tigermouth'.
She has her own site
Unun
sound just like the
Sugarcubes! That's why I like them.
Perhaps it's an unfair (and probably unwelcome) comparison but both bands
came from Iceland and both bands had a crazy pixie-esque lead singer who
sounds ecstatic and bonkers most of the time. I picked up their CDs in
various bargain bins years ago and have sifted out this little gem from
their album 'Super Shiny Dreams'. It bounces and it twangs and
is pretty darn good. Another note worthy track by Unun
is their single 'I See Red' which came out on
Deceptive Records (Elastica,
Angelica, Jonathan Fire Eater) in the UK. They've split up now I think...
probably fed up being compared to the Sugarcubes.
God, if I never see nor hear another
Abba
tribute band again it will be too soon, etc. but
Björn Again
were different. They were sort've the industry
standard requirement by which all other copycats compared (and usually
failed) themselves. Abba mania was more
rife than ever in the early 1990s thanks to Erasure's
number one 'Abba-esque' EP and understandably, Australian
Abba troupe
Björn Again were royally pissed with
Andy and
Vince for piping
them to the post with their Abba-tastic
spoof video. Queue their revenge! Their ingenious 'Erasure-ish'
EP turned the tables and instead of Erasure
making Abba
hits sound like
Erasure, they took
Erasure hits and made them sound like
Abba! How we laughed! Anyway, I love
what they did to this, 'Stop!'... they've made it sound just
like 'Does Your Mother Know'! This is the slightly longer
version, 'Stop! (More)', for extended pleasure.
'Erasure-ish' wasn't as big a hit as 'Abba-esque' but
it did alright reaching number 25 in the UK singles chart in 1992.
Hopefully, everyone should know who
Propaganda were and that
Claudia was the lead
singer. When that was all done with, of course there was the fantastic
Act with
Thomas
Leer (everyone should buy
Comedian
Julian Clary made two brief
forays into the pop arena, trying to slip his camp humour into the singles
charts but no one was having it! Debut single 'Leader Of The Pack'
sounds exactly how you'd expect it to, but it's this track I have a soft
spot for. This is the B-side to his cowboy-tastic 2nd single, 'Wandering Star', and was a mainstay of his early live shows. Shame
he didn't do an album... He has a nice website over
This track is a homage to old dear
Quentin Crisp. It's recently been getting a bit of a dusting off
by DJs around the world and turning up on a few compilation CDs care of the
electroclash thing. Gina X Performance
were a striking German electro-cabaret-disco troupe with a nice line in
harsh synth-core masterpieces. Zeus B. Held
was the main man, later going on to produce recordings with
Dead Or Alive and
Transmission Vamp. 'No G.D.M.' (which stands for 'Great Dark Man' -
a Crisp-ism referring to his eternal
search for one) is kind of their 'hit' and comes from
their 1979 debut album 'Nice Mover', which is not easy to pick
up these days... but praise the lord for LTM! CD Re-issues of the
band's first two albums (there were four in total) are expected in May,
resplendent with bonus tracks and detailed booklets. Yummy yummy.
An
A-Ha cover... which is genius! Two
blonde birds (though to be fair, they look a bit... well, masculine.
Trannies?) pout and whisper over a dance beat that would make
Almighty proud. That's
Diva. I think they're from
Scandinavia, and I know they had at least one other single release, 'Everybody', as I've seen it in a bargain bin for 50p recently!
And also something called 'Stand & Deliver', which is not an
Adam & The Ants cover : ( Anyway, this is 10 years old now and was not a hit in the UK. I really like
it and they have a nice logo as well.
Gay boys with guitars... Never seems to work, poor things. Just as well they
obscured their faces on all their single sleeves then really, as they're
probably all working down at Burger King, bitterly spitting into our
Whoppers as I speak. Brief history of the bad - 4 singles and they were
gone. Debut single was called 'Come' (dear me) and it's
AA-side was called 'Shirtlifter' (dear, dear me). 'Stand
Up!' is bright and perky enough and follow up 'Filming',
wasn't bad either. There's probably an album sitting on a dusty shelf
somewhere... Ladies and gentlemen, it's Lick!
Scary indeed... if you listen in closely, pigs can actually be heard
squealing in the background on this, Imogen Heap's
twisted debut single from 1996. If you need to soundtrack a bit of revenge
taking, this is ideal. Of course, Imogen
is now also one half of coffee table electronic, chic-pop outfit
Frou Frou (last heard covering sodding
Bonnie Tyler
on the 'Shrek 2' soundtrack!) but she started out on her own. The album which followed
this debut, 'I Megaphone', is a mish-mash of guitar based
songs which takes in revenge, strained relationships and self pity and on
the whole comes recommended, mostly due to Imogen's
dry, raspy vocal delivery. Bit like Joss Stone
with a cold. Here's her
I was watching
'I Know What You Did Last Summer' on T.V. the
other night and heard this playing in the background of a bloody murder
scene. It bugged me for hours after that I could not recall what it was, yet
I knew I had it somewhere... voila! It's this! Hooverphonic's
'2wicky' is the only song I know
which makes reciting serial numbers sound sexy. Sampling
Burt Bacharach's 'Walk On By'
and smouldering with deep reverb and Portishead-esque
trip-hop textures, it really is a well crafted piece of dark pop. Not sure
what happened to Hooverphonic. I'm sure
if they'd had any further UK releases or success, I would know about it so I assume they
went tits up. UPDATE! Well, hush my mouth! Apparently,
Hooverphonic are still going strong and
releasing music... just not here in the UK!
I absolutely loved this single way back in the day and told all my mates
they would be huge. How wrong could you be? Nancy
Boy looked good and I think most of them were homosexual, not
least of all (Calvin Klein model and son of 60's hippy
Donovan) Donovan Leitch. One
of the other members was one of The Monkees'
kids too. They popped up somewhere in between the Brit Pop craze and the
short-lived Romo fad, appeared on yoof telly's 'The Word' and
called their debut album 'Promosexual' (possibly one of the
best album titles ever). 'Johnny Chrome And Silver' was the
strongest track in their arsenal and when it didn't do much business here in
the UK, there wasn't much hope. Follow up 'Are Friends 'Electric'?'
(yes, that one) was largely ignored and the rest is history. I still
fucking love this though!
Fronted by
Kim Wilde's little sister
Roxanne, Dimestars
were a little pop-rock combo who just fell short of the mark.
Support slots with Kylie Minogue on her
2001 tour and the sexy rock chick demeanour of Roxy
didn't take them quite far enough and just two singles were released before
the inevitable split. Their debut, 'Solo So Long', had a
cracking B-side called 'Play', which I bring to you today!
Since the floptastic demise of Dimestars,
Roxanne Wilde has been involved in a few
odds and ends (none of them involving gardening), one of which was providing
vocals on The Visitor's cover of
The Go-Go's 'Our Lips Are Sealed'
on Wall Of Sound Records, which is really good. Not sure if
that actually came out officially, but I have a promo of it. There are
apparently whispers of a solo project, too...
Svengali
Tom Watkins is a pop genius.
Fact. Shame 2wo Third3 didn't quite take
off and East 17
did but there you go.
Apparently 2wo Third3 got their name
because two of the three lads in the band were gay. In fact, two thirds of
all pop bands are in fact gay. Another fact. This was the group's first and
best single and after a forth they were no more. They had really good
branding and their packaging woz lush. I think an album was just about
recorded but is sadly never to be heard... Or is it? I would shag them all.
Even the one who wasn't gay. In fact, especially him. Nice little tribute
site
Here's some bargain bin fodder! But that doesn't always mean utter shite,
especially not in this track's case. 'Men Are Not Nice Guys' is a nice funky romp of a track, not unlike
Air,
with some top femme vocal action. It's taken from their album 'Shampoo
Victims' which has tons of vocoder effects and a guest appearance by
one of the blokes from Sparks. Both the
album and single are mere pennies if you buy
1985's 'Minx'
by Toyah
hasn't been available for years and years and years. Shocking. I personally
think it's her best album and everything that followed it has been pretty
good too. I was never mad on the early kiddie-punk stuff but things really
got interesting when she moved to CBS imprint Portrait.
'Don't Fall In Love (I Said)' was the first of three singles taken
from the album and is a favourite of mine. 'Sympathy' is
another highlight of the album, expanding Toyah's
sound with an orchestral accompaniment which works really well. The album's
photography and artwork is gorgeous and the clothes (by
Issey Miyake) are divine. I always think of this album as
Toyah's diva/Grace
Jones moment. Head for
This is pure
Saint Etienne by numbers.
It could have been peeled right off of 'Foxbase Alpha'. The
track is taken from 'We Are Icerink', a very hard to get hold
of compilation issued by Bob Stanley and
Pete Wiggs to announce the arrival of
their own little boutique label, Icerink. All the tracks are pretty
outstanding and it's hard to believe that, err, none of them went on to
prosper (except Shampoo, and even
then...) much like the label itself. Elizabeth City
State didn't even get a release out, poor sods! So this is a rare
chance to hear their lovely, if incredibly brief, sound. There's an Icerink discography
I'll happily confess to knowing not a sausage about
Boutique. I'm a new 'fan'! I was emailed this track by a
visitor to the site (thanks!) and really like it. Apparently, they were in
'The Face' and 'the new Cure' may have
been mentioned somewhere along the line. I think they released another
couple of singles and then evaporated. If anyone wants to bolster my
knowledge, please do! Anyway, it's short and sweet. Enjoy!
The lovely
Darling Buds. I'm rather
furious that nothing is currently available by such a great fucking indie
band! We really need a nice little best of package, drawing all their
singles together and a few rarities thrown in for good measure. If you're
not familiar with the 'Buds, head
straight for 'Pop Said...', their definitive long player.
Every track is a rush of jangly guitars and fluttery harmonies, and the
whole thing is under 35 mins in length. Perfect. I chose 'Hit The
Ground' but really, any of the tracks come highly recommended. I
have never ever seen a Darling Buds
promo video, which makes me sad : (
Does anyone mind if I get a bit gay again? Well, tough. Dunno what happened
to this track, but the gays loved it. Hi-NRG smut delivered by a chiselled
young hunk. Yes please! Doing a search for further info (not that any is
needed, really) I found his official
This is a
Terence Trent D'arby track
given a glossy girl group makeover by the blink-and-you'll-miss-'em
Made In London lasses. They did a nice line
in B-side cover versions, covering Wendy & Lisa's
'Satisfaction' and
Grace Jones'
'Pull Up To The Bumper' on previous singles. I wonder what would have
made it onto the next single? We can only dream... as they never even got
their album out before the proverbial hit the fan. Promo CDs of the album
exist if you want to track one down, it isn't a bad set of songs at all and
one record buyers muck is another's gold etc. etc.
Hailing from Australia,
Deadstar were
signed with Mushroom Records subsidiary Discordant here in the
UK (responsible for Garbage's debut
single 'Vow', fact-fans) and spat out 3 singles and an album
before slipping away quietly while everyone was at the bar. Quite big down
under, the group didn't really achieve too much outside of their homeland,
but I was listening. And buying. 'Dress Looks Better On Me' is
a typical Deadstar racket with lots of
snotty moaning and sexy riffs and can be found on the B-side to 'Sex
Sell' from 1996. The album 'Deadstar' has some top
indie rock tracks on it and features one of my all time favourite lyrics -
"You're a shortcake, chocolate box, Jelly mould carnival, lurex-wearing
high-heeled, leopard skin animal" (from 'Beauty Queen').
I wont have a bad word said about this band. I adore them. Everything they
ever released puts a massive smile on my face and I shall play their records
'til the day I die. You need to buy
Long before
Eastender Tiffany was
falling down stairs and getting ran over outside the Queen Vic,
Martine McCutcheon
was one third of
desperate girl band Milan. I fondly
remember them touring local schools in the 1990s... They had 4 singles out
and then disappeared down the dumper. I don't think the other two went on to
do much this side of obscurity but we all know what
Martine did next.
Unfortunately. Anyway, Milan were like
a 'Blue Peter' version of Bananarama,
with dancey/clubby overtones, as heard in this track, which is probably the
best single of the bunch.