Great news from Dr Strangely Strange on FB:
Our RADIO SESSIONS CD is due out this October on the Think Like A Key Music label. In our heyday, we recorded only two BBC radio sessions, a Top Gear slot and an In Concert, both with John Peel. Frustratingly, the BBC’s tapes were wiped, but after extensive research with European collectors, TLAK has been able to locate off-air recordings of both sessions, which have been painstakingly restored. Added to these are brief radio sessions for Dutch and Danish radio sourced from the original recordings, as well as a Dublin rehearsal take of Sign On My Mind featuring Gary Moore, our friend and guest on Heavy Petting. The accompanying 24-page illustrated booklet has been compiled by Fitting Pieces To The Jigsaw author Adrian Whittaker.
Interesting.
We've already got a rehearsal take of 'Sign on my Mind'. Is this a different one?The "Take 1" on the Hux CD reissue? Good question. I've asked...
And the answer to the question "Just wondering if this version of Sign on my Mind is different to the additional "Take 1" on the Hux Heavy Petting?" comes back from the band: "that’s what I wonder. I suspect yes."
Ah!
Just spoken to Adrian Whittaker - biographer etc. It's definitely a different take of SomM
Good. Now I just have to decide if I need the disc. :-)
Talking of old radio material and off air recordings, plans are afoot for a large box of Martin Carthy radio stuff. There's been a call out for anyone with old cassettes. That could include me, but my tape collection is in miscellaneous boxes and was never systematically sorted anyway.
The first review is in (from British psychedelic historian - and mate - Andy Roberts on FB). Note that sadly it (the CD) is not available until October:
"Dr Strangely Strange
Radio Sessions
TLAK 1133
Well, what a surprise. This turned up in the post and clearly necessitated time to be put aside for a serious listening. So this afternoon I took a long sit down and gave it a glistening, listening thought which turned out to be this…
Listening to Dr Strangely Strange has, for me, always been like going to church, a particularly acid-drenched church set deep in the countryside where, as one of their songs put it, ‘time delivers a handstand and the colours are ever so bright.’ So the arrival of these Radio Sessions which included some scarce Strangelies songs immediately drew me in…
Beginning with a rehearsal of Sign on My Mind, from the Heavy Petting sessions, this one is just as groovy and essential as the album version, with slightly less fluid whistle and gorgeous guitar from Gary Moore. Then we’re into a couple of tracks from John Peel’s Top Gear (6/6/70), Ashling and Mary Malone of Moscow. The sound quality leaves something to be desired, but that desire is far outweighed by the existence of the tracks at all, and Strangelies fans will love them for what and how they are.
Then to a recording for In Concert (1/11/70) of Frosty Mornings, Horse of a Different Hue, On the West Cork Hack, Ballad if the Wasps and Sweet Red Rape. Again, the sound quality isn’t brilliant but that’s not why we’re here is it; listen to Coldplay if you want that sort of nonsense. These are delightfully ramshackle versions of songs we’ve come to know and love, musical diaries of events in the lives of the Strangelies some, I’m happy to report, the result of playing out whilst on acid (Goulding explains further in the notes). Frosty Mornings has a slightly different ending, Horse canters along nicely before going delightfully jazz-prog-folk-tastic and fading out. On the West Cork Hack stars the trippy Howson Phonofiddle and Ballad of the Wasps is as tremendous as ever, a rollocking acid parable and cautionary tale if ever there was one. The final track from this session, Sweet Red Rape is another Strangelies rarity and not on either of their original albums, inviting you to join them in downtown Belmullet in a sort of mutated blues about, well, the title of the song. As with Horse this one rocks out toward the end and never has bird seed been so celebrated!
Then just one track from Dutch Radio (9/4/71). But what a track! It’s Gave My Love An Apple, from Heavy Petting and Booth forewarns the audience that Ivan is going to take a solo. Radically different from the album version, I laughed all the way through; cod gospel? psychedelic country? faux-wop? Pub singalong? It’s all there! Gay & Terry Woods too and Ivan ‘wah wah’ Pawle’s solo. It’s all joyous, life affirming stuff played with enthusiasm and humour.
The album finishes with another track from Dutch radio (20/3/71) and it’s another Sign on My Mind. Can you have too many Signs? No, obviously not. This one has some band chatter as it slides into the song itself, with added bongos! As usual I felt the urge to dance to the skies as the boys wailed away, passing on the open secret that, as we all know, things aren’t what they would appear (but nor are they different as the Zen saying has it).
But there’s more! A brief group chat, typically surreal, funny and self deprecating, about the origins of the band and its name. Then it stopped. Awwww.
So, it’s perhaps not the album you’d choose if you were trying to persuade someone that the Strangelies are one of the best bands ever (your mileage may vary, mine never does) but if you’re a fan this is essential stuff. And if you’re not a fan start with Heavy Petting and work backwards and forwards. Strangelies chronicler Adrian Whittaker has done a marvellous job in sourcing these tracks and ensuring they see the light of day and has provided detailed sleeve notes in the accompanying booklet
The only sad thing about this release is that I don’t think it’s available to mere mortals until October, but that’ll be here before you know it"
