STRUGGLIN' IN THE 70s, SUCKIN' IN THE 80s, STARVIN' IN THE 90s... AND STILL GOIN' STRONG! SOME OH SO UNCOOL VINYL RELICS OF DOWNLINERS SECT AND THE NASHVILLE TEENS. RUN-DOWN, BUT DANGEROUS! (Not as dangerous as the bonusly added TROGGS' Tape, but still sharp enough to redefine the definition of FUGS me stooped)

 

Here's another issue of our sporadic series "What ever happened to the heroes", which started with some John's Children's live recordings from the 90s HERE, and never had a sequel. So here we go. A lot of 60s bands were dead as a Pharaoh, but as a name they showed up - and still do - on oldies package tours, sponsored by Porsche and the likes, karaoking to, say, "No Milk Today" or "Silence Is Golden". Others simply refused to die this way. They'd rather starve LOUD in their boots than sell out like that.

Initially we intended to collect the Downliners' complete 1979 LP "Showbiz" for the German Sky label plus a non-LP track from the accompanying maxi 45 plus the odd singles which popped up on various small labels around that time. (In a future post we'll document the incredible pseudo-punk album they made under the moniker F.U.2, if we'll find it in that messy wormhole heap van daale calls a collection.) But listening through the material we recognized that, sorry to say, there's quite some bleak and corny useless (i.e. trying to sound "commercial") stuff on the Sky releases, which would only distract from what The Sect stood for and still does: Snotty 60s-70s-80s-90s and 2013-Rhythm&Punk with a weird twist! (They obviously were as desperate as the Sky label, which usually released new age soft kraut-non-rock like Streetmark, Harlis, Bullfrog or Octopus, but also was home for the late 70s work of electronizicians like Cluster, Eno, Schnitzler or Tietchens. And was about going broke by the turn of the decade with this policy. Not the home of Richmond R&B, anyway. Guess, both had to make compromises, but never understood each other.) In the end we decided to compile a personal best of and to omit the most uninspired ballads and the boring substandard boogie fillers to keep you and us moving and grooving.

Talkin' bout fillers: To cut a short post longer, and to use the space we gained this way, here's a 4-track live 12" maxi 45 by The Nashville Teens from 1982 on the Shanghai label. (Hope we'll get no content warning for the ridiculously ugly cover. Would be deserved...) Except for "Red House" (an obvious homage to the gin mill they gigged that night, but a Hendrix song that simply defies any outside version), the damn thing rocks quite convincingly, even if Ray Philips is the only original member of the Teens involved here. (The others were Adrian Adrian Metcalfe, dr, Len Surtees, bg, Peter Agate, g.)

As this is a blog for elitist minorities, and bla-bla is unnecessary among equals, I'll hardly have to tell you about the glorious past of both bands. Erm..., well, I mean the paster past, or passeder paste. (Jeeziz, even this stuff is 30 years and older...) 

The Nashville Teens
(12" single, "Live At The Red House", Shanghai, UK, 1982):

01- Keep On Running/Somebody Help Me/Gimme Some Lovin'

02- Brought Down

03- Red House

04- Mona

Downliners Sect:

(Best of 1977 to 1982 plus two tracks from 1963)

05- Showbiz (12" single mix, 79)

06- Playing My Guitar (as 05)

07- Killing Me (single, Raw Records UK, 77)

08- Break Up

09- Frustration

10- Out Of School

11- Richmond Rhythm & Blues

12- Mismanagement

(please note: these two pictures are not included in the download file)

13- Colour-Coded Red (single, Inner Mystic, USA, rec. 80, rel. 85)

14- You Ain't Doin' Me Right (as 13)

15- Roll Over Beethoven (single, Lava, Germany, rec.63, rel. in the 80s)

16- Cadillac (as 15)

17- Showbiz (original version, 77, Raw, a-side of 07)

Bonusdreck:

18- Troggs Tape (approximately 1969)

DIRECT DOWNLOAD

(mp3 / 256 kbps / most scans included)