Ricochet days.

[reddragdiva]

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Down the Pembury with arkady to meet up with maxcelcat and woosang. Woosang got a good pic of me. Freda held out for longer than expected and we had three rather nice pints of Bear Ass.

James Ray's Gangwar are really rather good. James Ray is an old Andrew Eldritch crony; Gangwar are what Sisters of Mercy would have sounded like had Eldritch not disappeared up his own nose. I'm amazed I'd pretty much never heard of them in Australia.

Comments

[steer.livejournal.com]

Gangwar did rock indeed as did James Ray and the Performance, MK Ultra and 25 Men. I'm not quite so sure about 4080 peru or Longfolk but it' all James Ray.

http://www.thejamesray.co.uk/

Downloadable mp3s of almost everything are there. Third Generation and Psychodalek are probably my favourites. I was enough of a fanboy to purchase the novel accompanying Psychodalek many years ago.

[blackgrrr.livejournal.com]

On the otherside, I consider everything are the 'Dios Esta De Nuestro Lado' album to be pretty rubbish, and everything before that (including The Performance) to be all kinds of brilliance.

(That website really is a pain to navigate. And from memory the mp3s are only 96 kbps).

[steer.livejournal.com]

Ah... for me that's the point where they really found their own sound. I guess not everyone liked that.

Yes, the website is dreadfully organised and the mp3 bitrates low. However, much of the stuff is available pretty much nowhere else.

[reddragdiva]

Except filesharing, on a trivial search on http://blogsearch.google.com/ .

[steer.livejournal.com]

I'm not so convinced you'll find all of it on file sharing. Certainly last time I tried I couldn't but that was a couple of years ago.

[reddragdiva]

Obviously this needs remedying. (Who owns it?)

[steer.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think I might know who has the master tapes. Some of the stuff I only own on vinyl (which I no longer have tech to play) and there's one album which I never did track down (Beluga Pop) and the only copy I know of was put in a skip after the owner's death. That said, I just managed to find a copy on amazon for $22 but they won't ship it to the UK. Gah...

Must not get distracted from work.

[reddragdiva]

Pop over and I'll rip them on my USB turntable ;-)

[steer.livejournal.com]

I'd have to retrieve them from Yorkshire first. I really should get them ripped though so thanks for the offer. I might take you up on it at some future date when I decide to resolve the vinyl issue. :-)

[reddragdiva]

This exceedingly dodgy Russian site claims to have Beluga Pop (none of the links work), so it's probably Out There.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Heh... yes, I saw that but could not get it to work either. A few places also seem to have it for sale (only some at ruinous prices).

[blackgrrr.livejournal.com]

I was a big, big fan as soon as I heard 'Rev Rev Lowrider', so I raced out and paid $35 (er... UKP 17) for the CD, and I have been sporadically collecting the vinyl over the years.

I can recall Psychodalek coming out, being excited by the whole 'Dalek' bit and... not buying it.

But, as you say, each to their own. I'm still surprised some sort of collected works box has never been compiled. A lot is only really on vinyl.

[steer.livejournal.com]

A lot is only really on vinyl.

I don't think that much. All of the albums were released on CD and some were CD only. No albums were vinyl only though it may be some of the singles were.

In fact the first album "A new kind of Assassin" by James Ray and the Performance was the first CD I ever owned -- didn't actually have a CD player to play it but since it was pretty damned hard to obtain in any shop in Yorkshire and I never saw a vinyl copy I bought it on CD in the assumption that (a) someone could make me a tape and (b) I'd own a CD player one day.

[blackgrrr.livejournal.com]

don't think that much

The Gangwar 12" aren't on vinyl as far as I know, and I suspect much of the Performance scraps were.

I have "A New Kind of Assassin". It's all kinds of great, but it's far from a comprehensive collection of his tunes, and it also lacks a song called "A New Kind of Assassin" which, if memory serves, is most easily available on Mercer's first collection.

My memory could be faulty.

[steer.livejournal.com]

A new kind of assassin the song (not the album) was a b side on one of the early Performance 12" (I think I have it somewhere) and you're right that there was no CD release of it.

[blackgrrr.livejournal.com]

I'm amazed I'd pretty much never heard of them in Australia.

So am I.