we listen so fast: forgotten/unkown/unloved 80s we are listening to.

recorded summer 1986

pretty sure they played in the basement of my rental punk house that summer

I also highly recommend this modern reissue of David Myers' (later Arcane Device, still later David Lee Myers) great mid-80s cassette releases

https://davidleemyers.bandcamp.com/album/1986

oh and this Amos & Sara reissue (1983)

https://emotional-response-recs.bandcamp.com/album/go-home-soldier

Hal McGee is a total hero for preserving the Psychodrama and Girls On Fire tapes

https://cassetteartclassics.bandcamp.com/album/300-days-of-sodom-enhanced
https://cassetteartclassics.bandcamp.com/album/i-think-about-jackson-pollock

basically this thread was made for me, ty scott

raging, passionate proto-emo-punk anyone?

https://hated-numero.bandcamp.com/album/the-best-piece-of-shit-vol-3

idk how I feel about Ken Clinger listing other people's records under his own label/artist name, but his site also has lots of fab 80's analog synth tape stuff by Lauri Paisley, Don Slepian, etc

https://anvilcreations.bandcamp.com/album/womr-concert-1988
https://anvilcreations.bandcamp.com/album/real-to-reel

(see also all the I.E.M.A. Group Tape compilations on his site there)

is this the best of the many pseudonymous Nocturnal Emissions releases? I think so

https://nocturnalemissions.bandcamp.com/album/rpm-33-bpm-111-113

"the Corbett vs Dempsey label is doing an archival deep dive into the work of Dredd Foole & the Din..."

Dan is a friend of mine! I love him so much. And his wife too. they are both great. I saw them in July at Byron Coley's big summer shindig. I also bought all of Dan's EDM/Techno/Glitch CDs during the pandemic when he was moving house. That was fucking insane. I am STILL listening to it all. but i can't talk about that here. it's all 90s stuff he got when he was working at Forced Exposure. also Roger Miller lives up the road from me. It's good to have Din friends.

this sounded huge to me this week. her only album. i think even reissues are hard to find. it's friggin' amazing. produced by roy ayers. 1981. oof. i just love it. i only wish you guys could hear it loud on my stereo. the original sells for $300 and i am stating for the record that it is worth every penny. uh, not that i paid that for it. her voice is so cool. sometimes i hear minnie riperton in it. sometimes i hear my hero corey daye. but its all her really. and quite a performance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER7NilM3vlI

i brought this up on another thread but i had one of those real "how have i never heard this before!!!" moments last week. such a cool album. now i need the other two they made. i only knew that single "I'm In Love With A German Film Star".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8mNY8qx_sk

just discovered BOGSHED last week and now I have a whole nother slew of weird 80s bands to dig into

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phxebNsiiTo

xp YES see also Jackdaw Crowbar, Dog Faced Hermans, Dawson, etc

omg this thread--- Because not like there are so many Dredd records ever, here's another, from my '05 Voice round-up of outriders:

New England's Dredd Foole (Dan Ireton) used to lead a tribe called the Din,
which sometimes included emissaries from Boston noise kings Mission of Burma. As
presented by Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Forced Exposure's Byron Coley, the
Foole, armed now only with mostly non-noisy vocals and solo guitar, does indeed
fight A Long Losing Battle With Eloquence and Intimance (sic), and listeners
win. He's the bard of the barred and scarred, the ones who pay the toll and the
troll.
(Ain't Sorry.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeZs0puN3xM

I just saw a documentary about the Blitz club on a flight yesterday, and it reminded to go back and listen to Rexy again (obscure one-off from two Blitz kids):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX3Cj1v-AYE

there must have been a time when i knew that Graham Gouldman of progpop legends 10CC had a duo called WAX with american soft pop legend Andrew Gold, right? and that they made THREE(!!!) albums in the 80s. right? i have no memory of this. listening to their first album Magnetic Heaven from 1986. very Mike & The Mechanics with maybe a smidge more era-appropriate clanking drum machines and synth blurbs. not so terrible. Graham Gouldman is some sort of hero. ooooooh, an old-fashioned 10cc-style guitar break. don't know if i would listen again. i've heard other 80s stuff by 10cc people and they must have gone nuts with the new tech but i can't help but think about how GODLY (get it?) the production on 70s 10cc was. i mean, beyond godly. it was the creme of the crop. (did you catch that last part?) RAK Studios must have just got an upgrade of shiny new bells and whistles in 1986. but it sorta turns into mush. maybe i need an 80s-to-Analog converter for my stereo. my poor Marantz doesn't know what do with these chiming plastic synth washes.
man, my sister played the hell out of that second andrew gold album back in the 70s. i liked looking at the cover. i liked busy room covers.

apparently i'm going mousse hunting this morning. listening to Lodgic's 1985 album Nomadic Sands. you get lyrics about nuclear destruction by the second song so i am in the right place. the production is already way better than on the Wax album courtesy of Steve Porcaro. i would listen to this album again! good vibes. there is also air. and room to breathe. i guess all my 80s r&b listening (and synth-pop listening) has made me really prize minimalism when it comes to 80s synths and gadgets. (i mean really when you get right down to it there is no reason on god's green earth to listen to a Wax album when there is so much goodness you could be listening to just on the Solar label alone. but someone has to do the heavy lifting.)
hats off to Lodgic! you could be an r&b fan or an aor fan and maybe like this. a little sad that the better harmonies and melodies are on this album and not the graham Goldman album!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmTRHZYOtQc

i thought it might be a bridge too far to play the one and only album by Shy Talk from 1985 but they are standing on nomadic sand on the cover so i had to! and i'm enjoying it. maybe i have a fever. i dunno. sounds good to me in a kevin bacon movie soundtrack kinda way. their single could have been in Quicksilver for sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfCDXCdS1aQ

Shy Talk were never on an 80s soundtrack (which is baffling and i hope they fired their manager) but they were included on this cassette pop comp from Indonesia.

https://i.discogs.com/hk-MsV9-3lrULMzfpPXwBj6I4lOmwKmQkgHolGeZQe4/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:395/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTE1NDQy/MjYzLTE1OTE1OTAy/MzEtMTIyNi5qcGVn.jpeg

Scored a stack of forgotten 70s & 80s records in great condition for $1 each. They’re generally a cornucopia of mediocrity but a few stand out & will be getting a closer listen. First in mind is Ken Lockie’s The Impossible, which has at least one killer track, “Dance House”, a kind of industrial-lite post-disco stomper.

listening to Gus & The New Breed right now. Gus had two albums on the mighty Nemperor label. i know i have played the first one but i have no memory of it. this 2nd album from 1983 has some good hard rockin' power-poppin' bar bandin' fun. pay no more than $2. i guarantee that if he had made this album in 1985 it would have been wall to wall synths. "He Was So Humble" is the most hard rocking track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-RxJGjXdUw

Years ago I picked up a 1985 album by a Canadian band called Condition, Mumbo Jumbo, based on the cover (sharkskin suits, evening gown) and the covers (Cole Porter, The Cadets, and a Lil Green number "Knockin' Myself Out.") Chanteuse plays combo organ, there's sax, drums, and lots of exotica bongo banging. Her voice is a little strident.

https://i.discogs.com/vyN0aJS6--0AaocyMCaQiVoEf115c0yhD6ptrp-xVdg/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:450/w:465/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTIzMjMw/NDYtMTI4MjIzODAz/Ni5qcGVn.jpeg

This thread prompted me to search youtube and to my amazement there is a video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbVrwFTa6kY

"Scored a stack of forgotten 70s & 80s records in great condition for $1 each."

this is a big reason for this thread. the inspiration really. i bought the motherlode of 80s stuff. so much stuff. so fun too!

Mock me if you will but I'm quite a fan of this ludicrous 1983 piece of sub-Queen nonsense from Northern Ireland's Cruella de Ville, just playing it for the first time since it came out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYHq-ajJdC0

yikes, that's some crazy stuff! the cruella. i would never mock anyone's 80s love for anything.

i'm playing Cameo's Machismo album for the first time ever and i did not know that there is a Miles Davis jazz jam at the end of side one! nobody told me. there is some great horn action in general courtesy of the brecker brothers and maceo and kenny garrett.

If you need further confirmation that I'm the Lenny Williams aka kid Seville that played guitar on the machismo album you can contact Sammy merendino he put me in touch with cameo he was their drummer on numerous album's for them he can be reached at Sammy meredino.com or(212)9**-35**,I'm from Philadelphia, you have a album of mine and a picture of me I am the artist kid Seville so please change that it's not cool when someone takes credit for something that you've done even if it's a mistake but this can be rectified thank you Lenny Williams aka kid Seville, Leonard j Williams

discogs needs to get on that. notice how i covered the phone number. i don't want any of you guys calling sammy meredino and pranking him.

Hard to know what counts as "unknown" to ILM, but I've never met another person who knows and loves this whiny country song.

The Rave-Ups, Radio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn4M0HvuxGs

i like it! its sad. i love songs about radio. or when people say the word radio over and over. i remember the rave-ups of course because they were lumped in with all the other alt country rock people but i never listened to them.

Cameo's Machismo album is really ambitious! it's impressive. sounds great too.

are there fans of early soup dragons...i'm a little scared of this 1986 EP i have in front of me. Edinburgh address. i wonder if they were friends with Hee Haw up above there.

listening to the one and only album by The Gyrlz from 1988 on Capitol which sounds pretty much like you would think a girl group with involvement from Teddy Riley and Al B. Sure! would sound like. it's right up my nujak alley. i'm thinking of starting a tape label that is just chopped & screwed new jack r&b records from the 80s and 90s. #milliondollaridea

https://i.discogs.com/HRJDF4RP9P7tkXyiec6fHfGzhap55NIOJTDp-DS2HyU/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:360/w:395/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9BLTI5NDg0/OS0xNDU5NTM5MjU0/LTUwMTguanBlZw.jpeg

i haven't played it yet but i can't stop staring at this cover...

https://i.discogs.com/0VoiD6SljduZo7UWEUsmmn1L7B65_SL-3l1S_50RFm8/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:487/w:500/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTI0MTk1/MTYtMTI4MzA2NzIy/NC5qcGVn.jpeg

this gyrlz album is really solid! both sides.

love!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJh0wyWsjHU

Listening to Richard Strange's live debut solo album The Live Rise Of Richard Strange from 1980. it's cool. he was Kid Strange from my fave band Doctors of Madness. i've never heard his solo stuff. and you know how i love a live debut album. obviously remixed later but it originated live from Hurrah in NYC. i never got to go to Hurrah. its stripped down stuff compared to the proggy bombast of DoM. as befitting the times. still very vocal-forward and quirky. if you like the records that nash the slash did apart from the band FM then you would like this. that's pretty specific but pretty accurate too. this is more straightforward than nash's stuff though.

in case anyone might be interested. this was my pandemic project. i kinda got obsessed by the book VOLUME: International Discography Of The New Wave from 1980 and decided to make a playlist for the book. It took me...two years? more? Who knows. It was pandemic time, baby! Time wasn't really a thing. Anyway, it was really hard because that book was a mess. Lots of detective work. But fun too. I learned a lot and heard even more. Not totally applicable to this thread but in the spirit of this thread. this link should work.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE1-7P1reTFh-exzT4SJc8A6fHI1msnJo

I love this edit of “Damascus”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IOz1Ub3u_s

i'm debating whether i want to hear this album by The Wreckery from 1987. seriously weird lyrics on the back cover make me curious.

https://i.discogs.com/PZEws1j7zVIXL21ZQK43qSUlKNsfbWJsrFiq7RfLtIM/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:334/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9BLTU3MzIx/Mi0xMjgyNTU5ODI3/LmpwZWc.jpeg

they put out 3 albums in 2 years!

right now i'm listening to Jak's I Go Wild from 1985. I'm on the second side which is a sign of goodness. nobody in the store seemed to mind his masterpiece "Sixty Nine". it's good to work to. i know it's hard to believe but i'm actually working.

https://i.discogs.com/WwaqjYGBFz9nQWWkYf-H3Cvp7zHdMo98yTe4co1Xcds/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:400/w:378/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTEyMzkw/NTEtMTMzMjMzMzkz/MS5qcGVn.jpeg

I recently listened to the Zulus debut s/t EP and Down On The Floor LP. They're legendary around Boston and I must've seen them in the early 90s. But I still prefer Human Sexual Response.

i love human sexual response. i have had zulus records and not listened. i'll bet i have some around here. i just saw another record around here connected to HSR and now i can't remember what it was.

i'm gonna listen to the march violets after jak. i have a comp of theirs from 1984. and i've never really listened to them much! even though they are way more well known than most things mentioned here. better late than never! (its weird too cuz i love early goths like i love my mother!)

SEE CROW BABY!

i haven't gotten to crow baby yet! i'm really digging this though. tempted to keep...

Sorry, that's from 79

i don't know anything about jess roden or the rivits, kind of a uk new wave/power pop sort of thing i think? i do love the bloopy synth on this one though...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJeUZ_HKJXI
The Rivits - Red Light On

goofy todd vibes

another 80s obscurity i've uploaded today, this one sounds like Felt on fast foward with drums that sound like they were lifted from a footwork tune...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFr2lW20qC8
I-Lands - Untitled ('Robinsons')

Tbh when i bought it i didn't expect it to be any good, i'm just a sucker for an Artaud photo

Whoa very cool track and apt description. I also feel you on being a sucker for Artaud photos, I sort of want to get this printed on a shirt or something https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_xXnfDUfNmjY2Zd4iRmmPQDURZ3p-BKfm9fJhrpPkr5gzdUAqIxCXsM1WiBuM9Q2LccjtEpzLDvbNypO8iv1W3biXu5o6ypm3w6YGykzTaagPrUs7X9oZE75OhO3A_ps-8-O9UQ/s1600/download.jpg

ahh, that would be great!

seems El/Cherry Red adjacent for sure, with a bit of Smiths meets Norwhich.

underrated!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fIajip5_IY

underrated!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4xOccqkVvU

I recently started picking up He Said records. I think pretty much anything anybody from Wire did at any point is at least worth picking up.

There's a song called A.B.C. Dicks Love that I got really into.

Another great Wire side project is AC Marias.

That MC Twix track is a gem. This thread just keeps delivering.

AC Marias is amazing. I did have to pop onto youtube to let people know Time Was is an uncredited Blind Alan Wilson Canned Heat song though.

feat. Rowland S Howard on guitar no less.

really in love with the first Crazy House album. now i need their other albums. every track is a gem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=902K_TOJCxw

ditto’ing the AC marias love, big fan of this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWoC4caXACU

love the Lou Reed cover that was the b-side to the "One Of Our Girls Has Gone Missing"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJtRXxhZccw

THIS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_vFy9iHtU4

PLUS THIS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inLT6FTj3cM

PLUS THIS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXfyCPxp7bM

EQUALS THIS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j36mZ4KfR4E

enjoyed that toney lee video, reminded me a little of this absolutely peerless masterpiece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9u2rP8ecgE
Finis Henderson - Skip To My Lou (1983)

Began Cekic and BC Records/One Way Records is a kind of fascinating thing. A lot of shady retitled/not often credited cover versions, but often done with the help of someone like Tee Scott and often really good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPh4esgMOqM

is actually this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciNf7rhJDdQ

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQdgiZs0yAc

is the Police obv.

I always loved playing this though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvka7F-LOkk

lol, i own all four of this singles.

i think "spank" is actually better than the egyptian pyramids and the taj mahal. and the great wall of china.

This collection of 4-track bedroom recordings was released on cassette simultaneously with the EP Eden Revisited (Fountain of Youth Records, Bethesda, MD) by the DC-based band Troubled Gardens of which Dan Joseph was guitarist and principal songwriter. The cassette was offered via mail order on the album's back cover and was distributed among friends in the DC music scene. Composed between 1983 and 1985 while Dan was immersed in DC's punk/post-punk/new wave underground most notably as a member of 9353 and the Crippled Pilgrims.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qkd7tkTloP8

“spank” sounds so ridiculously good on a big-ass sound system

Cekic also did this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4HluTup2g0

The Simple Minds were fans.

I just ordered a copy of the original Spank remix, don't think I have it. But revisiting the Brooklyn Express version, which has an additional synth bit and the following as noted in discogs:

"Based on "Spank" by Jimmy Bo Horne.
Introductory "hey you" sampled from "One Step Beyond" by Madness.
Vocal "1, 2, 3, 4" taken from "Shanghaied" by 'Lectric Funk.
The long versions contain a breakdown featuring an interpolation of "Dancin'" by Grey & Hanks."

and the "change position" b-side, just re-edits it to put the arpeggiated synth part first instead of halfway through.

Yeah there’s a lot of cool shit on that Brooklyn Express version! For some reason I lump it in with those Wilesden Dodgers records that were like bare bones rhythm track covers of Dazz Band stuff.

another Cekic all-timer...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMwn-UQLk84
Dolette McDonald - (Xtra) Special (1982)

this Common Sense is also some highest tier shit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEBN4rdrW5o
Common Sense - Just Can't Help Myself (I Really Love You) (1980)

good luck finding originals of those two!

I love how most ppl I know think of me as a music expert, yet I still get schooled every day in this place, these are rad

(and 100% new/unfamiliar)

Willesden Dodgers records were the Jive Rhythm Trax 1 and 2 and scratch trax. Everything’s just named by the bpm. Some of the references are obvious. But 112 bpm is my jam.

I love that whole concept of records. Like ones that are used for changing the tempo, like the duane thamm proto Chicago house records with names like 108 bpm to 125 bpm or something.

Listening to the crippled pilgrims comp on Apple Music now, & kinda blown away. Nice to know about this, 9353, Troubled Gardens. Thanks for the tip.

It's my public duty. Cheers. That whole tape above is great! It's like a cool underground 80s style-guide. You get a little bit of everything.

I see that there's at least one mention of the Stroom label on here, but they have a lot of reissued that are very much unheard 80s.

love this. it might not be "unknown/unloved" but whatever. i'm giving it a shout-out here and now 11/16/2024.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdzvu6bt37w

very cool Minutemen-adjacent band on New Alliance, never heard of them until just now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcIBOoxFYK4

You Can't Hide Your Love From Me is a big early 80s post-disco/proto-house Larry Levan fave classic. He was in the uk jazz funk group Hi-Tension.

right, its a known quantity. especially in the u.k. but just in case someone here hasn't heard it...gotta spread the love. its such a fine single.