- Sample Medley
Technical Stuff
With the exception of Justice, the recording of these two albums, which were sold in some volumes at gigs as cassette albums, was a real step forward for us. We hasd lots of new tunes and the wherewihtall to record it all in our own time: a Yamaha analogue 4 track recorder and mixer. Whilst this might seem a little limited, we must not forget that The Beatles' "Sgt Pepper" was recorded on a four-track, and anyway necessity is the mother of invention. We used any mics we could scrounge, borrow or purloin. These included a pair of amazing PZM mics by Tandy. With a well known tweak, they offered detail and clarity way beyond what the modest price might have suggested. As for effects we were again somewhat limited but we had access to an Alesis Microverb and a variety of effects that could be "borrowed" from a guitar processor (Boss ME5) which gave us, for example, a very gritty but authentic vocal sound on 9.30. Mastering att these tracks onto quarter-inch stereo reel-to-reel tape gave us the kind of warm and saturated sound that we craved. Oh, for such simple pleasures.
"Justice" was recorded on a 24 track Studer at BTW Studios in North London, a fabulous coverted dairy with a dusty, ancient plate reverb secreted away in the loft space. Owner/engineer, John Borthwick, must have left his white jacket at home the day we went there as surely he was one of the old school lab technician-type recording gurus we had read about.
OK, the breakthough albums, Eat The Lemon and Imported Blue Monkeys now available in one digitally remastered format. Lots of songs to consider here - hold on tight.
Track Listing:
- Green Belt Locusts From the enormous opening chords, right through the hooky chorus to the crashing end this is a song with attitude. What do we want? Environmental resonsibility. When do we want it? Now. This is the original green lemon song…a lime song perhaps?
- Borrowed Time Mysterious imprecation, this one. Whose time is "borrowed"? Why is it that she starts to cross the room? Following the reflective middle section, it fairly belts along, not least in the extended solo coda. Leaves you panting for more, what?
- Nothing Personal Nothing Personal? Yeah, right. How much more personal does it need to get. The heart-stopping, swirling synth intro gives way to a hypnotic heatbeat of a rythmn programmmed on the then cutting-edge drum machine, the Roland TR505, tempered by the crunching guitars and sublime solo. This just raises the "Dear John" stakes….
- Get Out of my Way … followed by the pounding, shocking spike of rejection that is represented by "Get Out Of My Way". How much poison can be chanelled through one lyric? Try this: "You held me once, But you're useless to me now".
- Wrong Place A classic tale of "...not me guv, you've got the wrong bloke. Honest". This song blends the insistent sax of honorary guest lemon, Marco Piantino, with a sparse pared down rhythm track of guitar/bass/drums
- T Shirt 'n Jeans That sax again. T Shirt 'n Jeans was for many years the song we used to audition new band members: if they could bring somthing new to this tune they were in. Here it is in it's mid-90s guise. This time an up-beat slab of pure pop.
- Living for the Deadline At the time this song was written there was still a palpable fear of nuclear catastrophe, no more than minutes away. The depth of the gloom is matched only by the intensity of the desire to live life to the (short-term) full and make a mark: "A stanger two hours ago, You're now my closest friend". The music, too, is rigid and contrictive. Still, that's all behind us now…
- Just a Song Clever word-play. Is it really "just a song", or something of wider application? As usual nothing is what it seems: "Never lonelier than in a crowded room..." More 'modern life is rubbish' rubbing up against 'why is our relationship not working'. My goodness - pass the bottle.
- Simon Templar Those old enough will know that Simon Templar was "The Saint" - who? A sort of English toff Indiana Jones; you know the type: fast cars, glamourous girls, flash cash. Nice riff, though.
- In a CageTale of isolation and alienation. Slightly hysterical look at the connections we make when the circumstances we find ourselves in appear distorted. Languid melody wrapping around a sprightly rhythm - lot sof dynamics, too.
Track Listing:
- Justice One man's justice is another man's revenge, or so this lyric would have you believe.
- Borrowed Time Mysterious imprecation, this one. Whose time is "borrowed"? Why is it that she starts to cross the room? Following the reflective middle section, it fairly belts along, not least in the extended solo coda. Leaves you panting for more, what?
- Fancy Man That ol' rejection thing again. A very guitar and synth orientated shouting at the rafters. They say time heals all wounds. Not so. Occasionally the poisoned blood keep seeping and eventually leaks out into the world. Sometimes into a song like this.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah The only almost-instrumental EtL song ever recorded. "Almost" because, of course, we do sing the title. A few times. A bit of fluff, really. Still fun, though.
- Running from the Cops This chuggy, blues-inflected "first song we ever wrote", was a popular - and just about indispensible - live offering at every gig we did fo rthe first couple of decades… did I really just say "decades"?
- Buzzword 'Less is more', as teh famous Modernist Mies Van De Rohe would have it. So, if the pen is mightier than the sword then words are truly a dangerous thing, so we should all KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). Oh, and what fun we had with backwards reverb.
- Plan 'B' Bravado and peer pressure can lead the best of us astray, and will usually will. An unusual one this one - acoustic guitars, a lilting melody, and bell sounds plus piano to underpin the harmonies of the chorus of a Greek tragedy.
- Do You Dream? More existentialist musings. The theme, revisited later (How You Sleep at Night), is a familiar one: if a chair is in a room unseen by anyone does it really exist? If I do not achieve my goals, do I really exist? It's that A minor chord again.
- 9:30 Office workers of the world unite. Those seemingly endless hours whiled away by the coffee machine or the water cooler are part of a wider scheme of things, doncha know? With vocals like a siren call, and a jumpy tune and rythmn to drive it along, this song will mean so much to so many.