Cassettes in the UK 89-93

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threechordwonder
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Re: Cassettes in the UK 89-93

Post by threechordwonder » 08 Nov 2020 22:02

searchin4mymainline wrote:
08 Nov 2020 14:47
Interesting to hear about the catalogue of reel-to-reel boots. Do you remember when that would have been?
Early nineteen-seventies, most likely '74, but it could have been a year either side. I'm pretty sure it was reel-to-reels and also it was probably sourced from the USA, so it would have been printed up to a year earlier (on a Roneo-style duplicator). And that really is all I can remember.

bobbydriver
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Re: Cassettes in the UK 89-93

Post by bobbydriver » 11 Nov 2020 16:40

I was meaning to ask for a while about how widespread the bootlegging of Foggy Notion was before it's release on VU in the 1980s

The reason being, I recently heard the Nick Lowe track Heart Of The City from 1978 and it's surely no coincidence that it sounds a lot like Foggy Notion?

searchin4mymainline
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Re: Cassettes in the UK 89-93

Post by searchin4mymainline » 11 Nov 2020 21:03

bobbydriver wrote:
11 Nov 2020 16:40
I was meaning to ask for a while about how widespread the bootlegging of Foggy Notion was before it's release on VU in the 1980s

The reason being, I recently heard the Nick Lowe track Heart Of The City from 1978 and it's surely no coincidence that it sounds a lot like Foggy Notion?
Heart Of The City was first released on 14th August 1976 as the B-side of So It Goes.

Foggy Notion was released in June 1976 in the UK on the White Heat bootleg EP, so it seems it was around at least shortly before the release of Heart Of The City - I don't know if it was circulating earlier on tape. Googling suggests that a contemporary issue of punk fanzine "Sniffin' Glue" reviewed both these records.

So, on that basis, it seems possible that there's a connection. But I also think it's possible, and maybe more likely, that both songs are descended from one or more common ancestor.

Apparently the run-off message on the Heart Of The City side of the single says "Three Chord Trick Yeh".

Every time (which isn't all that often) I listen to Lou Reed's The Great Defender (Down At The Arcade), I think I hear some of the DNA of Foggy Notion - or is that just me? There's a self-referential lyric in that song to it being "rooted in the fifties."

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lurid
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Re: Cassettes in the UK 89-93

Post by lurid » 12 Nov 2020 15:07

I remember buying my copy of the "Foggy Notion" EP via a small ad in the NME or Sounds, mid to late 1976. The EP itself was reviewed by Roy Carr in the NME on 11th September 1976.

Remember also that the Cleveland band "The Mirrors" (featuring one Jamie Klimek) were covering "Foggy Notion" in the early 1970s. I've heard their demo of it and it sounds just like the VU live version from late 68/early 69.

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lurid
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Re: Cassettes in the UK 89-93

Post by lurid » 12 Nov 2020 16:25

(I mean the "White Heat" EP of course....)

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simonm
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Re: Cassettes in the UK 89-93

Post by simonm » 13 Nov 2020 14:56

Re Heart of the City - not heard this before but had a listen and I think it's pretty clearly based on Foggy Notion. The rhythm gtr is fairly generic-sounding, but the vocal lines and inflections in the verse are almost the same structure, too much to be a coincidence. Being a music biz guy he could have heard it before the White Heat EP was released.
here's a raucous live Rockpile version https://youtu.be/YQioTd-RGL0

searchin4mymainline
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Re: Cassettes in the UK 89-93

Post by searchin4mymainline » 13 Nov 2020 16:01

I'd been thinking since this came up that maybe "Heart Of The City" was instead inspired by The Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner". Of course that still gives it very much a VU heritage. My suspicion was also fueled slightly by the reference to "Fifty Thousand Watts" on "So It Goes" on the flipside of the record. Turns out that, according to the book "Cruel To Be Kind: The Life And Music Of Nick Lowe", he was asked directly if he had consciously "borrowed" from "Roadrunner" for "Heart Of The City". His reply: "Without a doubt I was absorbing all that stuff."

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simonm
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Re: Cassettes in the UK 89-93

Post by simonm » 23 Nov 2020 23:06

i thought about Road Runner too, but that wasn't released til '77.

searchin4mymainline
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Re: Cassettes in the UK 89-93

Post by searchin4mymainline » 24 Nov 2020 09:52

simonm wrote:
23 Nov 2020 23:06
i thought about Road Runner too, but that wasn't released til '77.
It was released as a UK single in 1977, but it was released on "Beserkley Chartbusters Vol. 1" in 1975. The biography explicitly mentions that album.

Hopefully this links to the relevant page of the biography

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