Bunnymen, Teardrops, Wah!, Liverpool Neo-Psych and Related

[patient_ot]

Anyone else a fan of this stuff. I think there are at least a couple fans on the board. Thought it was time for a dedicated thread.

[jaybird]

I play bass in an Echo tribute band.... not a super deep fan though... into the 80s albums, but don't really care about anything they did after Pete DeFreitas died.




For those keeping score, the drummer is the dude sitting on stage with Brian Baker in the pic i posted on the Dag Discography Challenge thread, and the guy playing 12-string was in The Meatmen for a few weeks in 1981, until Tesco kicked him out for puking in the backseat of his (Tesco's) car.

[patient_ot]

I play bass in an Echo tribute band.... not a super deep fan though... into the 80s albums, but don't really care about anything they did after Pete DeFreitas died.

I think most fans would consider the PDF era the classic period of the band. I've never been super into their later material either, though some I have heard is decent. It's kinda like the Who after Moon passed IMHO...not really the same band after that.

[JGJR]

I play bass in an Echo tribute band.... not a super deep fan though... into the 80s albums, but don't really care about anything they did after Pete DeFreitas died.

I think most fans would consider the PDF era the classic period of the band. I've never been super into their later material either, though some I have heard is decent. It's kinda like the Who after Moon passed IMHO...not really the same band after that.

I love the Bunnymen, but it's really all about the 1st 4 albums if I want to listen to them these days. I've tried some of the reunion stuff. My favorite was Siberia from 2005. I'd like to revisit that one. I think most of it is quite unmemorable, though. I don't even like the s/t that much, but it's got some tracks, but up to "Bring on the Dancing Horses," they were perfect and incredible.

I had a Julian Cope/Teardrop Explodes best of and I liked the TE stuff on there, but never explored them that much further. "Sleeping Gas" is an incredible song, as is "Poppies in the Field," especially the BBC version.

I've never listened to Wah! or any of Pete Wylie's stuff. I'm not sure why.

[patient_ot]

I love the Bunnymen, but it's really all about the 1st 4 albums if I want to listen to them these days. I've tried some of the reunion stuff. My favorite was Siberia from 2005. I'd like to revisit that one. I think most of it is quite unmemorable, though. I don't even like the s/t that much, but it's got some tracks, but up to "Bring on the Dancing Horses," they were perfect and incredible.

I had a Julian Cope/Teardrop Explodes best of and I liked the TE stuff on there, but never explored them that much further. "Sleeping Gas" is an incredible song, as is "Poppies in the Field," especially the BBC version.

I've never listened to Wah! or any of Pete Wylie's stuff. I'm not sure why.

I'm gonna talk about all three bands more in depth but it's going to be a minute.

RE: Teardrops, you really need to hear the albums IMHO. I didn't like them at first, because my expectations were skewed but I love those first 2 albums now. Those are the only "real" Teardrops albums btw, because the rest of it is posthumous sessions from when the band was falling apart.

RE: Pete Wylie, I would say the first album is very underrated in particular. Wah! didn't have a ton of exposure here and you don't see their stuff out in the wild too often IME.

[patient_ot]

UP first is CROCODILES.

This album has a certain punky energy to it that they never quite returned to. It's a very good album, short with no filler, though it doesn't quite have the atmosphere that they would capture on the next few albums.



The best sounding version of this album I have heard is the early UK LP pressing cut by Arun Chakraverty. He cut the LP HOT with narrow inner grooves, similar to what Porky was doing at the time. I don't think it's an accident that both of these guys worked out of the same mastering studio. If your cartridge sucks at tracing hot passages, tight inner grooves, or is not set up correctly, you'll know it when playing this LP.

In the U.S., the LP was issued on Sire and that version has two extra tracks from singles. I don't think it sounds anywhere near as good from memory, though it's been many years since I've heard it and don't have my copy anymore.

I no longer have my original Sire CD either, though I remember it being not too bad. The Sire CD had the same bonus tracks as the LP.

Then we get to the 2004 Rhino CD. It's a bit louder than the older CD versions and there is some compression going on. Still, I don't mind the sound. Bonus material on this one is great with tracks from singles and the live Shine So Hard 12''.

In 2004 Rhino also reissued the album on vinyl. This LP replicates the old Sire edition in terms of the tracklist, inner sleeve, labels. While I don't have an 80s Sire LP to directly compare it with anymore, from memory this is better with better low-end response. It was cut at Capitol Mastering and pressed at an unknown plant. I'm going to guess that the source was a 24 bit file of the same mastering that Rhino used for their CD edition, since these were both released the same year. That said, no info is provided regarding sources on this record, so it's anyone's guess. It's very well pressed unlike some of the Rhino and Rhino/Scorpio stuff done at Rain-Blow in the mid-2000s.

Lastly there is the Original Album Series (OAS) CD. This uses an older mastering from the 80s, probably a UK or European CD since there are no bonus tracks here like on the U.S. Sire. Listening now, I think it sounds very good. There is no limiting or compression, but I think an updated mastering that adds some punch but lays off the compression and limiting present on the 2004 Rhino CD would be great. Not sure when, if ever, that might happen. IIRC two different independent audiophile labels tried to license Bunnymen stuff and were both denied.

[pedro]

Up Reds!

[JGJR]

Up Reds!

Thanks for posting that; not sure if I'd ever seen that before; stunning performance even if I have no idea what it has to do with the thread besides Elvis growing up in Liverpool (and London, where he was born), but here is the source if anyone's curious. His voice was maybe at its peak then; he'd just quit drinking a few years before.

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... lief,_BBC1

[patient_ot]

Next up is the first album by The Teardrop Explodes, Kilimanjaro.

I will admit when I first heard this album, I didn't like it. Way back in the 90s I had only read about the band and you couldn't find anything by them at stores. I remember going to one local shop, and asking them if they could order the CD for me and they said yes, but only an import copy was available. So I remember waiting a couple of months for that to show up and expectations were high.

I didn't really get the album at first and noted it was a lot poppier than Crocodiles and didn't know what to make of the horns in some tracks. It would be several years before I ended up liking the album as much as I do now. What really eventually helped win me over were the basslines. Listen closely to the bass when you play this album.

Here are some of my favorite tracks from the album:





This track was originally a single, then got put on the album after the initial run of UK pressings:



My two vinyl copies are both U.S. pressings. One is an early copy on Mercury with the skyscraper label and the "group photo" cover of the album. I think it sounds quite good but note that the tracklisting and running order is a bit different than the UK version. This LP was cut at Masterdisk by Bob Ludwig. The other version I have is on the Skyclad label and seems to be a later pressing. This one features the "zebra" cover and was cut at Trutone. Honestly both LPs sound very nice and there isn't any clear winner IMHO. Differences between them are going to subtle to most people.

On the CD front, my current copy is the European HDCD remaster released in the year 2000. It has a number of excellent bonus tracks but the sound is compressed and limited somewhat. This particular HDCD doesn't seem to have peak extension either so decoding it doesn't improve the dynamic range. Still, I don't find anything majorly objectionable with the sound.

The older Fontana CD with no bonus tracks is more dynamic than the remaster and sounds fine too. I would imagine this copy is the one that most audiophiles prefer.

Finally we get to the Deluxe 3xCD remaster which has all the stuff on the 2000 HDCD but also some extra tracks from early singles and a full disc of BBC sessions. I would say this is going to be overkill for anyone but a big fan. It doesn't help that this edition is now OOP and pricey either.

[version sound]

I like Echo and the Bunnymen a lot. I’v heard some early Julian Cope solo, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard Teardrop Explodes, not in-depth, at least.

[lewdd]

I remember reading about Kilimanjaro in Time magazine small music section as a kid. They raved about it so I thought I had to hear it. Still never have.

[patient_ot]

I like Echo and the Bunnymen a lot. I’v heard some early Julian Cope solo, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard Teardrop Explodes, not in-depth, at least.

It's been awhile since I've heard any Cope solo stuff, but the Teardrops stuff is pretty different from what I remember.

[patient_ot]

Next up is the first album by Wah!, which was a vehicle for Pete Wylie's projects. Like Cope and McCulloch, Wylie was part of the short-lived Crucial Three and quit to form his own band.

Of the three groups, at least early on, Wah! is probably the darkest and most obscure. I don't think they got much traction on this side of the pond.

What does Nah=Poo - The Art of Bluff mean? I haven't got a clue. It's a very underrated album IMHO though and well worth getting if you happen to come across a copy. My LP copy is a European pressing on WEA/Eternal.





The album was only reissued on CD once, by Castle back in 2001. Thankfully the audio is not loudness war'd. There are some good bonus tracks but unfortunately the tracks from the first two 7'' singles are missing. Those are on a CD collection called "The Handy Wah Whole" which is kinda tough to find and expensive these days. The tracks from the singles are also needledrops on there, so I guess the master tapes for those were lost.