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Strange Brew – Sweeney Amongst The Nightingales (1985)

Amongst the myriad attempts at combining the oeuvres of Chuck Berry & TS Eliot this is an unremarkable example.

Strange Brew – Sweeney Amongst The Nightingales (1985)

Thankfully not the entire poem

Apeneck Sweeney spreads his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.
Continue reading “Strange Brew — Sweeney Amongst The Nightingales (1985)”

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Arthur

Every unnecessary cover version deserves an unnecessary video.

Chris Morris Original (Cover) 2015

A version of a little heard instrumental from the Jackalsons guitarist faithfully performed except for the bits I changed.

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Truly.Beautiful.Disaster

2006 To 2007

A short lived band who came together to play the Horsham Battle O’Bands Covers Competition in 2006 with the bright idea of doing tracks by ex-Yardbirds guitarists with keyboards as the main instrument.

Should you raise the energy to watch the video it’s worth keeping an eye on the the drummer as he does a sterling job playing one handed having fractured his left prehensile multi-fingered extremity a week before.

We sadly came second at the final and lost our beer money after being marked down for too much originality.

Truly.Beautiful.Disaster Complete (2006)

Unfortunately the guitar being far quieter on stage and consequently louder through the PA system means the keyboards are rather swamped in the mix for the video which was largely taken from the sound desk.

After a summer 2007 support slot to Blood Red Shoes in Horsham Park was rained off we packed it in as we didn’t want our superior versions to show up the temporarily reformed Led Zeppelin.

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Lay Off

At a Greenpeace Benefit gig in early 1989 we played an unrecorded Wedding Present number as an encore; which has a certain irony as they’re known for sticking to a set and not coming back on to play more tunes.

As a change from my usual fair I thought I’d knock out a video for something people might actually be interested in so ‘ere ’tis accompanying the rehearsal cassette from which we worked out how to play the song. Followed by some historical context of questionable authenticity.

The Wedding Present – Lay Off (Rehearsal Recording)

After their years of poptastic success it is now generally forgotten that The Wedding Present started out as an overtly political artists collective and that David Gedge was at one time the latest in a long line of song writers to be hailed as the next Bob Geldof.

For those of us who lived through the Thatcher years there is little novelty in the suggestion that the sound of young Leeds was ideologically driven but it is only the spearhead of the movement who are remembered today for their left wing affiliations; The Gang Of Four.

But even as late as ‘Lay Off’ it’s possible to hear the residual Marxist influence and a burgeoning existentialism, coital, in conflict and accord, as the ostensible railing against the inevitable human costs of capitalism comoglifies to the internal battles of the exo-conciousness.

‘Man must eat or be eaten’ Ad praesens ova cras pullis sunt meliora ad quem ad quod’ indeed!

But are the later popgasms that far removed from the earlier three minute manifestos? Are affairs of the heart any simpler than affairs of state? Buggered if I know, I haven’t thought about it.

A Chris Morris Organisation Recording.

All the film footage is from the Public Domain Prelinger Collection at the Internet Archive, particularly ‘Valley Town of 1940’ and the Soundie series. www.archive.org