As soon as I got my first combined radio cassette I was eager to tape some music from the radio. Previously I'd made recordings using a standard radio with a cassette tape recorder propped up next to the speaker, but this always produced understandably disappointing results. The new-fangled machine facilitated the recording of a much more professional standard and the first results were treated with a kind of reverence by myself and Evlkeith not seen again until video was invented some years later. The results of these fledgling recordings were collected onto a C90 known only as the legendary 'Farm Crazy Tape' and included the likes of Rip, Rig and Panic, B-Movie, 3-D A Fish in Sea and obviously The Farm. Tucked into this hall of fame were two songs by the Milkshakes that until now I had never managed to track down. 'Exactly Like You' sounds just as good now as it did then in a down and dirty, beat combo kind of way and at just over two minutes doesn't outstay it's welcome. Even though I've listened to it hundreds of times I'd never heard the last 15 seconds as an itchy trigger finger on record and play meant that a Dexy's song cut in on the tape and obliterated the ending. I'll work hard to get my hands on a copy of 'Fourteen Rhythm and Beat Greats' as I'm sure they have much more to offer. Any additional Milkshake information gratefully received.
If there's one song that sums it all up for me it's 'Love on the Terraces'. It's simple, straightforward, honest and reflects a time before everything became so serious. It's like a lower league version of 'Teenage Kicks', but with football related philosophical undertones, and the trademark 'talky bit' near the end. Serious Drinking were the self-styled 'third best band in Norwich' in the early eighties, combining punk, ska and indie influences with a cheeky and often humorous lyricism. They were in no way overtly political, but what they had to say really resonated with me and songs like 'World Service', 'Winter's Over' and 'Country Girl' all contained a serious message masked behind the comedy. I can't put it any better than James Brown on the original sleeve notes to 'Stranger than Tannadice'; "If you now spend Sunday mornings with your head in the papers when you used to spend them with it in a bucket, these notes and songs should remind you of life before maturity gripped. Of an attitude the Drinkers loved to highlight. That alcohol, dancing, football, humour and kissing have always been more pleasurable than career lessons and body building, and you'd do well to remember that." And so there it is; fifty songs in fifty days and an awful lot of writing and photo-shopping. Here's hoping you enjoyed one or two and now let's get back to what I've been listening to for the last month and a half.
