When an album badges and brands itself as Music for Mentalists - you know you'll be stepping a toe into a moral minefield of musical doings. Piley and I were first given the nudge on this one from Dan (the Bacon Man). It's an album co-compiled by Nick Saloman of The Bevis Frond gathering together a black museum of oddities and curios from middling slebs: Reginald Bosanquet, Jim Bowen David Carradine - unknown but bizzaro bods Linda Jarman, Martin Harvey, Mavin James. And John Collier's Saturday Night Suit.
How did the project happen? Nick Saloman: The comp was mostly the work of my mate Mick Dillingham who is a longtime collector of what he calls 'qual-crap'. 'Gotcha' is one of his discoveries. A rather disturbing song.
Based on John Fowles The Collector, a key piece in the collection is Gotcha by Michael 'Boon' Elphick - where he outranks (in all senses) Pepe le Pew in pursuit of an unseen offstage beauty. It's an oily uncomfortable spurt of queasy listening, brimming with 80s bleeptronica and breathy threats 'look out for me I'm behind that tree'. But still, something we pitched in to Tuesday's Podrophenia playlist (and it's second appearance too)
Following some sparky banter on the message boards - Podrophonic regular Marmite Boy nipped off to Amazon to review the 7" edition of Gotcha - and was soon followed by a Flash Mob of Podrophenia reviewers - which we've now christened the Gotch Conga
Should you fancy lending an ear to the cold-dread horror of Gotcha - dig in below. Better yet we'd love to see your critical scribblings on it written and recorded here.. at the Amazon Gotcha Conga
Michael Elphick - Gotcha
Nick/Bevis made a previous appearance on the blog last year with a stomping selection here
7 comments:
Double takes all round - Michael Elphick... the beloved hell raiser of London!
When in Boon and a bit more sober than at many point in his life he looked a lot like my Dad did... He did some journalist thing once - "Harry" straight after Boon - utter rubbish!
I've been tarred with the Boon brush before - the cheek! The album's worth grabbing for this stomping versh of Steptoe and Son
And don't forget to leave a Gotcha review on Amazon..
Absolute mentalism...where do you find this stuff? Crackers!
It's worth bagging for this stomper though Matt
Glad you've got the buzz on this album. I love listening to virtually all the tracks (I tend to give the Sefton thing a wide berth, to be fair) but there's lots of gold in them thar hills.
The Steptoe and Son theme is an absolute corker. The inlay of the CD hints at a possible sequel one day. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for Music For Mentalists 2...
This post has made my day!
Wunderbar!!
Cheers Jimmy - dig about the web and you'll find DL links for the album - well worth grabbing
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