Filed under: Magnificent 7's, mp3 club | Tags: Magnificent 7's, mp3, Undertones
It’s now officially summer and everything so here’s a stone cold classic 7″ celebrating the joys of the season. Fizzing with youthful energy, summer sunshine and pure pop joy all squeezed into just over a minute and a half by the greatest singles band ever to emerge from our comrade Snoddy’s homeland. In recent years the Undertones general wonderfulness has been a little obscured by the all-conquering genius of their debut single Teenage Kicks but they produced a run of singles which are each in their own way, perhaps some more than others, undeniably great. This is but one. As a little added bonus (’cos we’ve been slack, ‘cos it’s great etc) we’re adding their second single Get Over You for your listening pleasure. If you’ve only ever heard Teenage Kicks dive on in ‘cos there’s a lot more to enjoy where it came from.
The Undertones – Here Comes The Summer
Both are on their brilliant self -titled debut which you can get for about £5, money well spent. They’ve also been reissuing the singles, with B-sides and bonus live versions digitally via i-tunes if that’s your sort of thing, and the albums too with plenty of bonus stuff added on. I’m sticking with my vinyl and nostalgia for my lost youth at the moment…………
buy undertones stuff at amazon undertones.com
dubversion's leg
some of the pins have been removed but no marbles came out of his feet. Which can only be a good thing. He’ll be along shortly, we hope, to tell us all off for mucking about and so on. In the wake of his fall we’ve been a little quiet on the subject of……………
PROD Cymru
so, just to set the record straight, it was, with rather obvious exceptions, quite a success. In the rather wonderful venue of Derwenlas village hall, where we were a little sceptical of running everything from the one plug socket, but we did. There was a good turn out of comrades who’d got the idea of what we were doing and joined our struggle bringing with them a better selection of records than we’ve seen for a while in that there London. With Comrade Ouchmonkey starting to fade alarmingly Comrade Badly stepped up to the wheels of steel to close out the night with a blistering final 20 mins of joy from his box of magic 7″s and a fine time was had all round. Our thanks to those who came and enjoyed themselves (particularly those who travelled long distances) and to our comrades in west Wales who made it all possible. Hopefully we’ll make our return at some point with our faster, stronger, bionic dub-bot at the helm and they’ll have got in a second 13amp plug to run the whole show off.
Well comrades, I know we’ve been a little slow in reporting back on recent PROD events but, in consideration of Comrade Dubversion’s condition we’ve had other things on our minds. The happy news is he is back in London and should hopefully soon have the work required to fix him up. He’s also got hold of his X-rays so maybe we’ll get one of them up so you can all suck in through yer teeth and go “ooooh, that does look nasty”. and resolve to buy him beer or Rum. or vodka – he’s not that fussy.
We can’t pretend we didn’t miss him and Marmosette but we’d like to thank everyone who helped in making The Magnificent Seventh go off so well and PROD’s return to it’s birthplace The Windmill so fun – Comrade Kanda who wholeheartedly embraced the role of deck prole proving himself truly up to the task by playing the wrong side of Comrade Snoddy’s single and then turning it over only to play it at the wrong speed. That, you have to admit, is the stuff. Not to mention the curious and deplorable, but nonetheless amusing rickrolling incident. Comrade Shelley’s help in the cloakroom and Cribbage’s elsewhere which somehow avoided further injury, Comrade Bee’s marvellous, fund raisingly delicious cakes and incomparable sharps bucket shaking from Comrade Tanky – Between us all we’ve raised a decent amount toward helping out our stricken comrade and our stricken comrades’ van. Most of all perhaps we should thank the wonderful Morton Valence, who played a great set, for free bless ‘em. Look out for the album later in the year – here’s the great video for their new single, Falling Down The Stairs. Which, we all agreed, was at least not called falling off a ladder.
more news on Comrades Dubversion’s recovery, the word on PROD Cymru and more Magnificent 7’s coming soon.
As many of you may have already heard through underground channels of communication, Comrade Dubversion lies stricken and immobile on a hillside in north Wales following last weekend’s PROD uprising in Derwenlas. Where he was cruelly laid low by a combination of gravity and misfortune. He has a broken knee but is in good care and I’m sure you would all join with us in wishing for his speedy recovery and return, updates on his condition as we receive them.
This tragedy aside the first Welsh PROD was a great success, more of which later………….
Also, this weekend’s PROD at The Windmill is still going ahead with help from other loyal comrades, hopefully we will be able to raise some money to assist he and comrade Marmosette in their time of need.
Well comrades, this is something that’s been threatened for quite a while so long indeed that you have to ask “How hard can it be?” – harder than you’d think it would seem. Despite all the time wastin’ and laziness the final irony is it’s been sitting around ready to go for a few weeks but, you know, there’s a lot going on what with going to Wales (did we mention we’re off to Wales?) and our 7th birthday and all that. This mix tends to lean quite hard on stuff from the last year or two with a few older tunes for good measure and we’re already at work on the next installment which will focus more on the later, drunker, stupider section of the evening. Why, we’re even considering a gentle one to ease your aching head on the sunday – I wouldn’t hold your collective breath for it though.
PROD – mix your drinks mix (91mb) (Artwork)
As it’s generally part of the fun of PROD not to have any idea what is coming next we’re not putting up the tracklist for this – we can reveal it’s got Girl’s Aloud and The Fall. and The Bug and The Specials as well as all kinds of other stuff – so something for everyone as ever. If you just absolutely can’t stand the suspense or really must prejudge things you can download the lovely artwork (including the tracklist) first. It can be your secret shame.
Filed under: Magnificent 7's, mp3 club | Tags: Magnificent 7's, mp3, mp3 club, Stereolab
Here’s a band who loved the format of the 7″ single – coloured vinyl, handpainted sleeves, limited edition runs they gave it all a go. I always wondered if this title was supposed to be a manifesto or a joke at their own expense. Avant garde, throwaway pop. It’s not a bad description. For the second installment of Magnificent 7’s Comrade Snoddy hymns the joy of Stereolab when they were at their very bestest….
I thought it was going to be difficult to pick just one 7″, but it wasn’t. John Cage Bubblegum is perfect. I thought so the first time I heard it, bleary-eyed at five in the morning just back from the French record fair where I’d bought it (£4 only u skinny rats) and it still gives me goosebumps 15 years later. Short, taut and everything thrown in for the climax, a once-great band at their apotheosis, sometimes I take this to bed and cuddle it (pictured below).
Stereolab – John Cage Bubblegum
it’s available on singles and odds and sods collection refried ectoplasm – stereolab - John Cage
as a little bonus here’s a clip of John Cage talking about, er, noise or something. with french subtitles. you’ll see the appeal it has to the ‘lab. panic. panic.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Comrades -
PROD is making its first (official) trip to Wales – Derwenlas, to be precise – to take discocracy to the valleys of Powys.
Join us on February 28th for what promises to be a wonderful, and particularly drunken, evening. Not only will the usual PROD nonsense occur (there’s a significant underground cell of PROD comrades hiding out in the area to show the locals how it’s done), but it’s also just a couple of days after the 57th birthday of one of our most loyal and exalted allies, Comrade Fester.
Before the PROD proper begins, we’re doing it for the kids!!! Between 6-8pm, all kids are free with an accompanying adult and we can find out quite how popular all 48 sequels to High School Musical really are.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Madness, Magnificent 7's, mp3, mp3 club
Well comrades, as the collective is celebrating the 7th anniversary of our struggle on the 7th of March we thought it would be fitting to do so by playing only 7″ vinyl records. And that’s a lot of sevens. As discussed elsewhere we have downgraded these demands in order to be most inclusive of your choices. Nevertheless, we are still quite pleased with the whole idea and those of you who do show up with a couple of battered old singles from your younger days will feel not only the warm glow of nostalgia but the pale and sickly glow of comrade Snoddy’s smile.
As a rule not too many people bring down old vinyl singles to PROD on a regular basis and as a night we’ve had a great deal to to thank the CD-R for in terms of practicality and comrades not having to be too concerned about forgetting to pick up their tunes but I would contend, brothers and sisters, that the 7″ is at the heart of what we do. While our open door policy to all genres and tunes that you might bring creates a pleasingly random atmosphere and everything from lengthy dance 12’s to showtunes has gone over great at one time or another there’s hardly anything that’s as much of a guaranteed WIN! on the metaphorical fruit machine of the PROD dancefloor as a cracking 3 minute single. I believe you know what i’m talking about. I’ve attempted, but failed, to elucidate this essential 7″ – ness so here’s Pop professor Comrade Eno on the subject,
….the combination of the three-minute single and the radio station is in my opinion what gave birth to rock ‘n’ roll. The content was drawn from a whole lot of Afro-American, Appalachian, Irish music that filled that new technological space but what really drove the thing was that suddenly it was possible to make a three minute piece of music stand alone, and it could be heard globally in a very short space of time through radio stations and this created a new way of thinking about music.
You see? Anyway The Mp3 club returns with a series of ol’ tunes we bought on 7″ singles, back when they was easy to come by starting with Comrade Ouchmonkeys first ….
I’d love to say I got this from Woolworth’s and it cost me 50p but the truth is I can’t remember and more likely it came from the record shop in the local shopping precinct. Handily there’s seven of them too. On reflection this is just about the perfect first single for a kid isn’t it? It’s about school days and had a video set in a playground in which the sax player (that’s him in the middle in the titular trousers) flew around during his solo. Genius. It came early on in a great run of singles accompanied by equally fun (and much better made) videos.
available on Divine Madness and well worth your cash
here’s that video – it looks even cheaper than I remember and makes the early 80’s look like just after the war……………..
Here’s the new, and slightly improved flyer for our upcoming seventh birthday celebrations. Far from the usual drill on this one comrades, so you’ll probably need to pay attention and take notes and such. Firstly, for this one, we’re back in The Windmill where it all started so very, very long ago. When a man had a crazy dream to have ‘a bit of a do’, get drunk with his mates and shout a lot and another man thought “I’ll go to that for a laugh” but got lost and never made it. Secondly we’ve got the fabulous Morton Valence playing live for you who are releasing a new single ‘Falling Down The Stairs’ a couple of days before and jetsetting off to New York a couple of days after. Plenty of you will already know how great they are – the rest of you can come and find out. Hear the new single and read the story about the new album at their myspace page. As if all that wasn’t enough comrades we’re making it extra challenging, or exciting, or well, something by STRONGLY encouraging you to bring your tunes on 7″ vinyl. Weak willed forces of appeasement within the collective don’t trust some of you to have anything worth listening to on a 7″ single so we’ve downgraded this ‘rule’ to a recommendation but go dig out some great old singles you’ve not played for a while and bring a couple down, it’ll be great - come on people!
There’s more too. Seriously. So check back here for further updates in the coming days.
