From Another Side #2

From Another Side #2

• Won't Wear It For Long - Karen Marks
  The Bombs Dropped on Xmas - The Reels
  Ohira Tour - The Reels
  For All We Know - The Reels
  Babys In The Know - The Reels
  Casa - Karen Ansell
  Gee Lately - Ya Ya Choral
  Big Go Go - INXS
  Say Goodbye ( Australian 12" )- Hunters & Collectors
  Say Goodbye ( US 12" ) - Hunters & Collectors
  Silent Night - Four Corners
  Jack Robinson - The Someloves
  Everything - Shrinking Violets
  Days Of Our Lives - Howard I Know
  Failure - Howard I Know
  It's Just That I Miss You - Flaming Hands
  Seek & Find - Flaming Hands
  The Stranger - Flaming Hands
  New Day ( Live JJJ vers ) - Flaming Hands
  Shout ( Live JJJ vers ) - Deckchairs Overboard
  Carried Away - Deckchairs Overboard
  Smacks Of Love ( Version ) - Crib Sex
  The Most Innocent Person I Know - Crib Sex

From Another Side #2 - hear it

Because we've had a bit of The Reels lately on the Singles blog I picked out early Reels, and especially as we had Karen Ansell and I mentioned she was in The Reels at one point....we also have some other things Karen was involved in ( eg backing vocals with INXS ) and projects that other some Reels members were involved in ( eg Ya Ya Choral ). 

Linking on from there to another 'Karen' ( yea yea Karen ) I chose the b-side of Cold Cafe by Karen Marks.

I also picked some other sides to people who all featured recently on the Singles blog - The Someloves, The Shrinking Violets, Howard I Know, Deckchairs Overboard & Crib Sex.

And some Flaming Hands - b-sides and obscurities and also a couple of extended 12" mixes of Say Goodbye as well as another obscure side project of the Hunnas ( Four Corners )

.....so off we go...

"Won't Wear It For Long" is the b-side of Cold Cafe by Karen Marks ( she of Ash Wednesday collaborative fame ), as played on #107 and I really wanted to play it not only is it a great track but because recently I saw this go on eBay for $558 Aussie dollars....strewth...and sheesh. Not sure it's worth that much really...

Just before that popped up on the Bay someone had emailed me and offered me 440 Euros for my copy. If you know anything about me from my blogs you'd probably guess that no way in a trillion years would I be parting with any of my records ( until I'm at least 85 and senile and in an old people's home...even then I'll be trying to play my records to my fellow oldies in the home I bet )

So I also wanted to play it as part of my "music should be heard" policy ( and not cost anyone 558 dollars to hear ).

Plus there was the "Karen" link with Karen Ansell....

As the solo single "Commotion" from Karen Ansell popped up on #116 on top of a lot of Reels singles appearing in the last 12 months or so( #92, #98, #107, #116, #118 ) and Karen being briefly in The Reels we hear "Casa" the b-side of "Commotion" ( btw thi song is co-written by Oleh from Big Pig ) plus a few songs from The Reels from her time in the group. It's a Phd topic to figure out the comings and goings of the various Reels lineups, but as far as I can trace she seemed to be in the band from approx 80-81-82 ish, ie 5 Great Gift Ideas era, through the Quasimodo's Dream album and then roughly as far as the "No.3" single ( for one of the tracks on the b-side as least ).

So, having set that little scene up...we have "The Bomb's Dropped on Xmas" from the "5 Great Gift Ideas" ep, being the only original Reels track on the ep amongst a raft of covers, eg According To My Heart, Band Of Gold, etc. Then "Ohira Tour" which credits Karen Ansell as one of the composers, in this instance from the LP of "Quasimodo's Dream", previously on the b-side of the "After The News" single as one of 3 "Media Themes". Also from the Quasi's album we hear "For All We Know". Then from the first Reels s/titled album ( although Ansell not involved at that stage ) we have "Baby's In The Know". 

After that's it's a few other things that Reels members took part in ........oh and by the way, we'll get to the "next era" Reels ( ie Pitt St Farmers / Beautiful ) a bit later on this blog - sneaking a look in the Singles pile I can see a few 7's from that era on the horizon.

I find there's something both wild and unusual about the pairing of some (ex) Reels and M Squared...I do love it though.

For the 2nd Ya Ya Choral release seems somehow Gibson, Tee & Graham ( as Ya Ya still was at that point ) hooked up with Craig "Polly" Newham & John Bliss for some of the tracks on their 2nd release, the "What's A Quaver" ep. They were ex Reels by that point, possibly also departing around the same time as Karen Ansell, but coming back around 86-87 ( I told you it was complex ). Anyhoooow the boys got down and dirty in Surry Hills with Patrick et al, providing vocals, "arrangement" and "drum programming" - yeah John Bliss got to play with "The International Drum Machine" - I am jealous.

"Gee Lately" is one of those tracks.

And finally in this Reels-Ansell bracket, the INXS connection contained herein today is that Dave Mason and Karen A provided backing vocals on a couple of tracks from the second INXS album "Underneath The Colours" - ie on "Stay Young" ( also a single - see #43 ) and the track "Big Go Go".  

And there we endeth the Reels connections for now....

As we heard the 7" on "Say Goodbye" on #118, I've dug up 2 different extended / 12" mixes...firstly the Australian 12", produced/remixed by Gavin MacKillop then the US 12" version - remixed by Ivan Ivan ( actually from the b-side of a US promo 12" of "Throw Your Arms Around Me" )( this one pressed at very grotty quality 33&1/3 unfortunately ).

Then a side project called Four Corners - featuring Mark Seymour & Jeremy Smith from the Hunnas, Des Heffner who was in The Birthday Party for a while & later The Slaughtermen and my hazy brain ( which could be wrong ) places him in The Marching Girls ( NZ ) at one point. Apologies if I'm wrong there. And the 4th "corner" was a guy called Robert Oertel who is a bit of mysterious figure, first my memory came up with nothin' then "computa says no" when Google came into the equation, only tidbit is a suggestion he "worked at Mushroom"...so not sure how he hooked with Seymour et al other than the fact this ep is on White / Mushroom.

More Hunnas later down the track as I also know some more 7's of their's are coming to the Single blog.

There's nothing out of the ordinary with either the Someloves track ( it's just the b-side of "Melt" from #118 ) or the Shrinking Violets - "Everything" is in fact the A-side of the single, when they popped up on #114 I actually played the b-side "She Said".

Likewise with Howard I Know - two b sides : "Days of Our Lives" the other side of "Orwell Street " ( #118 ) and "Failure" the flip of 'Standby Flight" ( #112 ) 

Then we're onto Flaming Hands, mostly Phantom era, starting with "It's Just That I Miss You", in fact a double-a-side with "Go Or Stay" ( another from #118 ) and "The Stranger" the b-side of their first single " I Belong To Nobody" ( see #14 )



 

"Seek & Find" which was at the time a previously unreleased Flaming Hands track on the Phantom Records comp "Paths Of Pain To Jewels Of Glory"

Then latter day Flaming Hands, again with another M Squared connection - by the then Michael Prowse ( Prod, Scattered Order ) was on drums and also Craig Robertson on bass ( aka Craig Bottle, also ex Prod and Pel Mel ). This particular version of "New Day" was recorded live at 2JJJ as part of their The Nine O'Clock Muse series in 1983.
From that same album, in fact next track is a live version of "Shout" from Deckchairs Overboard.

We had the 7" version of 'Shout" last year on #101, the b-side of which is an extended version, but I thought I'd play this live Nine O'Clock Muse version today. More recently we had "That's The Way" on #116,  the track today called "carried Away" is the other side of that.

And finally two b-sides for the Brisbane band Crib Sex, an extended version of "Smacks of Love", the b-side to that single ( #116 ) and "The Most Innocent Person I Know", their previous single, another double-a-side scenario with "This is My Problem" which featured way way back on #38