Page 94 - Classic Rock (January 2020)
P. 94
REISSUES
The Flys and growing scene disaffection,
Today Belongs To Me: their sole classic single Going
The Complete Recordings Through The Motions. Eleventh
1977-1980 CHERRY RED and final track White Riot Tour
What a buzz! (Live) offers a brief snippet of
Led by the often a multi-band encore jam on
rivalrous David Sister Ray. You really, really had
Freeman and to be there.
Neil O’Connor, QQQQQQQQQQ
The Flys often Ian Fortnam
trounced their guitar-faced
competition with shiny wit, Dan Reed
jaundiced excitement and Network
brilliant songs that John Peel Reissues UNIVERSAL
played but not enough people They rocked. They funked.
bought. Their singles alone They should have been huge.
– Namedropping, What Will In every era,
Mother Say? and the starter there are great
punk classic Love And A Molotov bands that
Cocktail, to name but three never make it
– combined the rush of punk big. In the late
with a strong suggestion that 80s, one such band was the Dan
someone had been at the Bowie Reed Network. With a sound
(although there’s also a rich hint likened to two of the superstar
of Cockney Rebel in songs like acts of that time – Bon Jovi-
We Don’t Mind The Rave, and meets-Prince! – and with Reed
a bit of Numan on the later a charismatic singer almost as
Fascinate Me). Bowing out pretty as Jon Bon Jovi himself,
hitless, O’Connor would work the Network’s first two albums
with sister Hazel, while Freeman, were brilliant. But for all the
Prince as one of The Lover Speaks, great songs they had, they just
would give Annie Lennox a hit
couldn’t get that one
song with No More I Love Yous. breakthrough hit that would
1999 Super Deluxe Edition WARNER
A great, underrated band have changed everything.
Prince’s estate opens the vaults for this hugely finally gets a proper On 1988 debut Dan Reed
acknowledgment with this Network (8/10), made with Bon
expanded reissue of his synth-funk masterpiece. two-CD collection. Jovi and Aerosmith producer
QQQQQQQQQQ Bruce Fairbairn, their funk rock
David Quantick manifesto was laid out in Get
multi-platinum career are enough counterfactual detours and To You, with mighty anthems
breakthrough back in 1982, half-realised experiments here to excite The Prefects in Resurrect and Ritual, and
A nce’s fifth album was his first even casual fans. One of the most striking Going Through a deft power ballad in Tamin’
Pri
The Motions CALL OF THE VOID The Wild Nights. Second album
US Top 10 hit, the first to feature his cuts from the vaults is Vagina, a growly
definitive backing band The Revolution, queer-funk rocker about an ambisexual Brum’s early punk adopters’ Slam (9/10), was even better.
and the first major milestone in his new fantasy figure who is ‘half boy, half girl’. It slim legacy anthologised. Produced by Chic’s Nile
Rodgers, who’d cut hits for
Neither Jam nor
wave electro-funk imperial phase. was reportedly written for Prince’s lover Buzzcocks Bowie, Diana Ross and others,
Almost four decades later, 1999 still feels Denise Matthews and her raunchy sex- made it to the it had more of that funky stuff
like an avant-pop masterpiece, finding pop trio Vanity 6, but was shelved when Chelmsford in Tiger In A Dress, beautiful
a fertile balance between sexually Matthews rejected his suggested stage date of The ballads in Stronger Than Steel
supercharged disco-glam swagger and name of Vagina in favour of Vanity. Clash’s White Riot tour, but The and Rainbow Child, and
post-punk pre-millennial future-shock Another stand-out is Rearrange, Prefects did. Their bill-opening a streetwise edge in the title
weirdness. While even huge singles such a propulsive funk-rocker which erupts set commenced with: “This track and Cruise Together.
as Little Red Corvette seethe with gloriously into glorious avant-metal guitar one’s called Birmingham’s These new reissues come
wonky noises, blaring synth fanfares and shredding, and Do Yourself a Favor, a soulful A Shithole”. And indeed it was. without bonus material, but no
cutting-edge drum-machine beats, reworking of If You See Me, a bittersweet Shithole sounded exactly how matter, because the original
Something In The Water (Does Not Compute) break-up ballad previously recorded by you’d think, but The Prefects albums are pretty much perfect.
sounds like Kraftwerk having a squelchy Minneapolis band 94East. You’re All I Want weren’t to remain identipunk Paul Elliott
robot orgy, International Lover takes Carry and No Call U both feature Prince in bill-bottomers for long. Not that
On-style salacious innuendo to Mile High plastic rockabilly mode, channelling Elvis the quartet ever attained any The Babys
Club levels, and All The Critics Love U In via Freddie Mercury, fun but lightweight. modicum of fame, they just tired Silver Dreams: Complete
of the Ramones ramalam that Albums 1975-1980
New York invents LCD Soundsystem’s Alternative versions of 1999 tracks
archly self-aware hipster-funk shtick two include a less robotic Something In The inspired them into being (when HNE/CHERRY RED
head Prefect Robert Lloyd Britain has melodic rock talent.
decades earlier. Water (Does Not Compute) and an agreeably
realised he “enjoyed Faust and America approves.
None of this is news, of course. Serious unpolished take of International Lover on
Prince-heads will be more enticed by the which Prince pitches his histrionic falsetto Beefheart more”) and moved on. All six albums
During their brief tenure (they (including
mountain of previously unreleased vocal an octave lower. Even if the odd split in early ‘79 to form The a planned but
archive material in this mammoth multi- track grates and drags today, notably Lady Nightingales) they recorded little scrapped/
disc package: 35 tracks spanning a broad Cab Driver, Prince’s apocalyptic soft-porn – a pair of Peel sessions, which much-
spectrum from throwaway studio future-funk party album mostly still hits sound a lot like those of the bootlegged false start), B-sides,
sketches to fully realised anthems, B-sides, the digital G-spot. Banshees but with Lloyd’s tetchy two live promo sets… That’s 87
demos and live concert recordings. QQQQQQQQQQ any-punk bray out front and, tracks (11 more than needed,
Quality levels inevitably vary, but there Stephen Dalton using lessons learned from the given the ‘bonus’ mono remixes)
Velvets’ All Tomorrow’s Parties across six CDs.
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