BURIED TREASURE

Unarchiving hidden gems…

Such is the speed of popular culture, not to mention my own accelerated aging process, that’s it easy to lose track of those formative moments that once defined your waking being. As someone with an unworkably capacious record collection, and restless appetite for fresh meat, it’s easy to overlook those gems already on your doorstep. This was brought home the other evening when, tearing into the yielding flesh of a stuffed marrow, I chanced upon two such lost treasures on Marc Riley’s 6 Music show. The first was the Birdbrain from Boston trio Buffalo Tom (check the 1990 album of the same name for a rollicking version of the Psychedelic Furs’ Heaven too); and while that invoked a rather unbefitting spot of old-timer chair rocking, the second split my stupid face from ear to ear, so warm were its associations. And so, in tribute, it’s the first entry in a possibly erratic and potentially endless new mini-series starting right here, right now…

1. THE VERY THINGS

THE BUSHES SCREAM WHILE MY DADDY PRUNES

(Reflex, 1984)

Like, I suspect, many others, the first time this madcap oddity assaulted my discerning ten speed gears, I was bedroom-bound on a weekday, dutifully tuning into the John Peel Show. It stood out like a raging hard-on in an impotence clinic, from its muffled distorted intro to the unhinged gabbling voice bellowing “I’m going pruning… pruning, pruning, pruning, pruning!” before the off-kilter rockabilly riffs kick in. It’s brilliantly evocative – parts of Joe Meek, Joe Orton, Napoleon XIV, The Twilight Zone and even Lon Chaney all linger in the sonic swamp – yet also totally of itself with its almost spasmodically discordant middle eight and haunting church bell chimes. There’s an unmistakable whiff of the novelty hit to it – though this would be a hit only in the long-lost Independent Chart and on Peel’s Festive 50 – and I recall making a conscious decision not to buy its parent album for fear that the impact of The Bushes… and its two-riff B-side The Shearing Machine would forever be tainted by the unseemly keening of its lack lustre siblings. They may well be a work genius on the same scale, but it’s a risk I’d still somehow prefer to shirk.

The Bushes… also came accompanied by a video that matched it to a tee (watch it here); proof that a shoestring budget need be no barrier to greatness, and enough to spook any budding Percy Throwers planning to rein in their roses. However, this wasn’t a full promotional effort but a film made with the band at The Tube’s bequest, prompting fellow guest Ken Russell to declare it “wonderfully gothic,” adding that it made him want to destroy his greatest work. The film’s ’50s sci-fi B-movie vibe complements its noir leanings perfectly, and paved the way for a future live slot on the same show debuting Let's Go Out.

So who were these Very Things I have come to praise? It was principally the work of singer/bassist The Shend, with guitarist Robin Raymond and drummer Gordon Disneytime. The former pair were both exiles from Redditch jazz punks The Cravats, who released half a dozen singles and the 1980 full-length The Cravats In Toytown for labels like Small Wonder, Glass and Crass between 1978 and ’82, recording three Peel sessions along the way. And while The Bushes… was the Things’ commercial highpoint, they went on to record a second album Motortown (One Little Indian, 1998), while Fire collected some of their best bits (but curiously no The Bushes…) on the compilation It’s A Drug, It’s A Drug, It's A Ha Ha Ha, It’s A Trojan Horse Coming Out Of The Wall in 1993.

Since the band split in 1988 The Shend has been the most visible – growing a capacious beard (see above) and turning his thespian talents into a whole raft of TV gold in the likes of Emmerdale, Hustle and The Hogfather, though is perhaps most memorable for his portrayal of psychotic killer Max in Torchwood (They Keep Killing Suzie, 2006). Which is all well and groovy, yet nothing competes with that seven-inch slab of black plastic that nestles alongside the likes of Vice Squad, Venom, Vim and Johnny Violent in my collection, yet towers above them all. Respect due.