Monday, May 15, 2017

ABCs of My Vinyl Collection (Letter E, Part 8)

Back in November, one day after the catastrophic election, to be exact, I featured the soundtrack to 'Dance Craze,' an album chock full of gems from ska's second wave. I purposely focused on minor acts like Bad Manners and the Bodysnatchers because I knew the rest of the bands on the album would get their own day in this series. That brings us to the English Beat. My apologies to the rest of the world for "the Donald" and the fact that we here in America call the Beat the English Beat (in that order). It was all to avoid the confusion of having a terrific power-pop band called the Beat here on our shores... Los Angeles to be exact. I don't like them as much as Dave, Roger and the rest, but they are worth a listen.

My vinyl section for the English Beat is nothing special. I have the three studio albums and a couple of singles. Even that sparse collection became obsolete when I invested in the five-disc 'The Complete Beat' box set when it came out in 2012, but I hung on to the wax anyway. I bought the box for the two discs of bonus material that included extended versions, remixes and dub mixes, as well as all three Peel Sessions and a live performance. I had some of that material on vinyl, and that's what we'll listen to today. Here is the "Jeanette" 12" in all of its scratchy glory. Not a big deal to you folks on the other side of the pond, but I only have a couple of pieces of vinyl with the Go-Feet Records imprint, and this is one of them. The English Beat were on I.R.S. over here. The B-side is an extra-long instrumental version of "Rotating Head" made famous on 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off.'

"Jeanette" (Extended)
"March of the Swivel Heads" (Extended)

Linear Tracking Lives turns 8 today. I want to thank everyone who has stopped by over the years. I have always said I'll quit doing this when it starts to feel like work. I'm still having fun, and it's because of you. Until tomorrow, then...

11 comments:

Charity Chic said...

Happy 8th blog birthday Brian
Good to hear The Beat as they are known in these parts

drew said...

Happy blog Birthday pal, keep on keeping on.

My favourite Beat moment has to be the dub of Stand Down Margaret, the flip to Best Friend.

Echorich said...

Happy 8th Birthday Brian! I have to say that I managed to completely miss the 10th Anniversary of my first post back in February. I've always been equally, if not more really, engaged in being an active part of our Blogging Community and If I reflect on many of my own posts I can see the influence of blogs such as your own in giving me direction and engaging me in my own writing.
Thanks for all you do is not just a platitude, it is meant sincerely!!!

Dirk said...

Happy birthday, my friend, now you're as old as Little Loser, unbelievable isn't it? Good luck for the future of LTL!

C said...

A very happy 8th birthday to LTL - wow, that's no mean feat.
I only ever owned Mirror In The Bathroom by the Beat, but loved the Go-Feet sleeve it came in.

Swiss Adam said...

Happy blog birthday Brian. My favourite Beat song is Save It For Later. Mirror always gets the feet moving at a party

George said...

I'm impressed you can keep going for 8 years. And post the occasional quite good song. Well done!

Brian said...

Thanks for the kind words, everyone.

Rol said...

Belated 8th birthday greetings: and an excellent choice of band to celebrate too, minus the English bit. (Another one that annoys me is The Charlatans UK... but don't get me started, I'll be here all night!)

Brian said...

Bugs me too, Rol. The name change for legal reasons happens more often than you might think. London Suede might be the one I hate the most.

JC said...

Belated happy birthday my dear friend. This remains one of the best blogs out there - packed with all sorts of suprises from someone who not only knows his stuff but is so capable of writing about it in an informative and entertaining way.

I also love the fact that you don't care if something runs the risk of being ridiculed as uncool - if you love it, then you'll air it!!

The Beat always take me back to my first ever attempts at DJing as a 17 year old when I'd play tunes for the 12-14 year olds at school social club nights which were put on once a week as an effort to keep them off the streets. They all loved the 2-tone stuff and associated acts like The Beat. Mirror In The Bathroom is a classic.