Scene: a messageboard, now distant in time.
“Q. Is Track & Field the new Sarah?”
“A. no, because Sarah was a PUNK label.”
Yep, that was us. Belated thanks to “Bella” for being the only one who backed us up.
Ahem. We couldn’t leave this one any longer. Yes, it feels unnecessary in so many ways, and it’s self-defeating because not only is it so hard to leave out any group or song, but there’s the constant need to check your back when you do, such is the passion felt for this label by so many people, not least of all ourselves. And we understand that passion, whether it’s love or hate: we named our first-born after the label, after all (though I think we’d been hoping for a girl).
What we will never understand is indifference to Sarah, or the “I quite liked the music but didn’t get the politics” line, which sets new standards in missing the point. Our ‘666’ catalogue number might be tongue-in-cheek, but it definitely reflects a view amongst many we knew (egged on at the time by certain journos in the music press) that the label was in league with Satan (rather than, as a Heavenly LP title suggested, against him).
AND of course there's the rather major stumbling block that Clare and Matt themselves gave us “There And Back Again Lane”, which already does for Sarah Records exactly what we've been trying to do with this series... but having spent the majority of our lives putting together one Sarah comp or another, we can hardly walk away, hardly leave her out of this year’s fantasy of confected label compilation albums.... so, for good or ill, this is what we came up with. Please be gentle with us.
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1. Christine’s Cat “Your Love Is...”
Not especially representative of the Sarah sound, but a dead-on marker of Sarah’s approach: a flexi, with a fanzine, and two stolen minutes of gorgeously shambling, slightly atonal twee-fuzz from a band of whom nothing more was heard, ever again...
2. The Golden Dawn “My Secret World”
Despatches from Greece over recent years mean that I am *never* now going to be able to shift (or indeed wear) any of the dozens of Golden Dawn badges that still lie untended in my cupboard (back in the day I helped my mate with his fanzine, “My Secret World”; it came with a pink GD badge and we had loads left over, even after we'd flogged most of the 'zines). A shame that ‘our’ Golden Dawn have been overtaken by events thus, as SARAH 9 was as feral as 1-8 put together, a raggedy, rickety but infectious shambling marvel. May God forgive Clare & Matt for refusing to release “No Reason Why”, though.
3. Boyracer “He Gets Me So Hard”
We’re trying, for this selection, not to duplicate tracks from “There And Back”, but have to make an exception for this, because frankly it's one of the greatest songs the label ever released, one of my favourite singles of all time.
And yet I have a strong fear that the band themselves don't really rate it; a concern that the label may not cherish it as much as some of their other babies; a memory that the person responsible for recording it didn't seem to remember it when I mentioned it to him... Agh. Still, *this* is romance, the power and the pain of relationships, the fire of great music, plus a title that apparently confounded Stewart’s mum for a while. And it's the closest Sarah got, sonically at least, to the early Mary Chain's cocktail of raw emotion and unapologetic noise.
4. Action Painting! “Mustard Gas”
Our friends hated everything on Sarah, seemingly on principle. And when we pointed them to Boyracer or Action Painting! all they did was change their line of attack, from “it's all weedy and it all sounds the same” to something not too far from the lamest criticism ever levelled at music, namely “that's not music, it's just noise”. And so it was with Action Painting!
AP!’s previous 45 “Classical Music” was great, and had the added wow factor that it was such a shock after their janglier first 7" "These Things Happen", but it's “Mustard Gas” – with its sheer, silly 1977 riffs - that still *jars* today, in a most good and holy way. Plus, the sleeve thanks the girls of both Shampoo and Bubblegum Splash! which summed up a fair percentage of our non-Sarah listening at the time.
5. Blueboy “Dirty Mags”
The last single ever released on Sarah, and despite what some might say, it was as good as any of the earlier ones. Indeed, this fairly raucous number even stood up to Blueboy’s somewhat amazing earlier run of singles that included A-side gems like “Clearer”, “Meet Johnny Rave”, “River” and “Popkiss”. We tipped our hat to Blueboy here, but it's important to know that they - and the memory of Keith Girdler - are still cherished more than words can say.
6. The Sea Urchins “Solace”
We spoke about the plunging depths of our adoration for “Solace” in our belated post for Marianthi, so shan’t repeat ourselves. Recently captured on Cherry Red’s “Scared To Get Happy” box set, this remains a cut-glass classic as far as we’re concerned, and is one of those songs that recaptures the optimism and fire of our youth without making us feel that we wasted all its opportunities.
7. Ivy “Avenge”
Norwich quartet Ivy have been largely written out of the Sarah story. A great shame, as the second of their two singles for Sarah, “Avenge”, has it all: sharp, cascading vocals from singer Spencer Harrison; an undisguised revenge lyric; one of the rockier guitar breaks to grace the label; a doggedly low-tech drum machine; a B-side named from a poem by Christina Rossetti. We honestly think that “Avenge” should have been on “There And Back Again Lane”, and it has survived the ravages of history intact.
(Point of information: Ivy suffered from being confused with the New York trio of the same name - stickered as “Ivy (NYC)” at the time, even though now it’s ‘our’ Ivy who tend to be labelled, as ”Ivy (UK)” - some of whose early tunes would not have been too out of place on Sarah. Aberdeen, for example, who cut their teeth with their own drum-machine backed singles on Sarah, ended up squarely in Ivy (er, NYC) territory by the time of songs like “Sink Or Float”).
8. Another Sunny Day “You Should All Be Murdered”
It wasn’t just our mates, come to think of it. The world and his wife kept missing the point about Sarah, often wilfully. They said it was all just soppy songs about holding hands. They ignored the songs about the poll tax, about John Major, about impending environmental catastrophe, about children = pollution (q.v.). They ignored the single about a construction worker plucking up the courage to walk into a gay bar for the first time. They ignored the song - this song - about committing mass murder, for heaven’s sake. Which was a shame, because it’s a brilliant tune, which we used to inflict on anyone who ventured within yards of our cheapo record player, and we don't quite know why it’s not unequivocally regarded as ASD’s best. The spiralling guitar parts towards the end came not long after Sarah had issued the Field Mice's “Sensitive”, with its glorious extended outro, and may have owed something to that tune's spirit.
9. Brighter “Killjoy"
We’ve not really ever tried to hide our feelings on Brighter.
But what Brighter song to include here? “So You Said”? “Christmas”? “Tinsel Heart”? “Hope Springs Eternal”? All are LEGEND, and we could spurt out endless paras of praise breaking each down into their component parts, or recording exactly where we were and what we were thinking when we first let them wash over us; but that must come another day, as for now it is all about “Killjoy”, the opening track on Brighter’s swansong “Disney” 10”, which is solid as a rock, as a huge hulking slab of granite; musically it feels clinical, clean-lined and disciplined yet lyrically it’s burgeoning with emotion; from the minute-long instrumental intro to the peerless bass-driven closing outro, this was Brighter writing their greatness into modernity.
Even the title was somehow just right, and encapsulated that frequent theme in Keris’s songs, of ‘friends’ who let you down, yet there’s a defiance and resolution to his voice here, the “this is me” that marries the personal and political as only Brighter, and in time Harper Lee, could do. Listening to “Killjoy” still makes my innards glow, my heart swell with strange pride, my eyes well up with the *happiness* that I loved this at the time and that I still love this now and it makes me want to high-five my younger self for having had, on this occasion at least, such impeccable taste.
10. Secret Shine “Loveblind”
Last time we mentioned Secret Shine was in the context of their well-worthwhile 21st century comeback, which brought back a few memories too.
Looking back, Secret Shine wanted to be MBV, we suspect, and wanted to sign to Creation (probably), but at the time we saw their respectful-sounding collage of indie-pop and shoegaze as a deliberate construct, rather than an attempt to become Bristol’s official representative on a passing bandwagon, and loved it all the more for that (loved it far more than some of the lesser bands who they were, perhaps inexplicably, trying to be).
“Loveblind” is a typical example of Secret Shine at their finest, with the skyrocketing vocals and lyrics somehow gloriously wimpy at the same time as the guitars are tense and frothing, and the sentiment seemingly romantic (“you know I love you, always will do” – or at least that’s what we’ve always assumed they’re singing). It even got pre-John Peel evening play on Radio One, as quite a few Sarah singles began to do by this time.
11. The Wake “Carbrain”
We might just have mentioned the Wake before. We love all their Sarah output, and the sheer sarkiness and narkiness of their two album outings for the label, but this pretty & poppy first single is just golden and had to be here (much as we were tempted by “Joke Shop” or “Provincial Disco”, two of the most drippingly, disconcertingly sardonic recordings ever committed to tape).
12. The Rosaries “Leaving”
Trying to find out anything at all about the Rosaries is like pulling teeth, but we are really fond of their sole Sarah 7” EP (“Forever”), the lead track of which, “Leaving” builds predictably yet engagingly from warm and soft, percussion-free chords and girl-sung sweetness through to a heady fuzz-noise denouement, co-opting male ‘answer’ vocals along the way. They also did a tune about the Rainbow II on a Sunday Records comp; but as far as we can tell, that was pretty much it.
We don’t even know where the Rosaries hailed from: at the time we were hearing south Wales / Cardiff, which would have made them local-ish to the Garden Flat, and been consistent with the lyrical reference to Bristol Temple Meads, on the line running down through to south Wales; mind you, the fount of indiepop knowledge that is Tweenet has them down as coming from Coventry instead, which would put them in the top four bands from that city ever, some way behind Bolt-Thrower and the Specials but snapping at the heels of the Primitives.
13. Heavenly “Our Love Is Heavenly”
We’ve still only seen the Fall and Napalm Death more times than Heavenly, we reckon (and those bands have both had plenty of years to stream ahead, given that Heavenly only graced this unforgiving earth between 1989 and 1996). Back in those days, we were hamstrung by the fact that Heavenly’s records never sounded as iridescent, as fluorescent, as the same songs did at their joyous gigs; but as time passes, we realise that actually, their records still sound pretty damn amazing, especially this one, which over time has overtaken even “Atta Girl”, “Shallow”, “Trophy Girlfriend” or “C Is The Heavenly Option” to sit pretty at the peak of our (very real) affection for the band.
14. The Field Mice “Missing The Moon”
Yes, it should really be “Sensitive”, a song that changed our world (see here again, for example).
But it's not, partly because we don't want to recycle “There And Back…” too much, but also because “Missing The Moon” still works, and still means a lot. It was bold and brave and it stands up better than pretty much any other meld of alt-pop and acid house influences of the time (including the Creation dance imprint we mentioned a few posts ago) and better than some of the Field Mice’s other sonic experimentation (cough *chocolate love sex* cough). Perhaps the most courageous thing of all was not so much that the Field Mice went all sequencer-led and dancey (after all, the beauteous “A Wrong Turn And Raindrops” on the other side showed how they could still slay in a more traditionally fey way) but the fact that Sarah capitulated and put this out as a… TWELVE INCH SINGLE. At the time, that was possibly the most controversial thing that had ever happened, in the history of the world, ever.
15. Shelley “Reproduction Is Pollution”
Shelley were Tim, Dickon and Steve.
Tim was known to us in the early 1990s, before this EP came out, as “Mr. Indie” (I think this was probably because he wore indie cool, indie fringes, and indie fashions 100x better than we ever managed to) and it was very rare indeed for us to go to a Sarah gig anywhere in the south-east of England at which he wasn’t present. We seem to remember him having cut his musical teeth in Waccamole and Timbertoes, not that we ever managed to hear anything by either combo; our friends in and around the London “scene” at the time claimed to be attempting to purloin him to produce my band’s flexi, but sadly nothing came of that.
Dickon, last seen helming the chic and glamorous Fosca, first became known to us by virtue of a fanzine handed out at a Sarah Thekla gig (dotted with quotes from Half Man Half Biscuit lyrics, bizarrely), and was always precociously talented. Tim and Dickon would of course go on to form Orlando, get on the cover of Gay Times (the first copy I ever bought) and be the only good Romo band: Orlando, with heavyweight production, full arrangements, disco sensibilities and Tim’s incredible (“blimey, where did that come from?”) singing voice, were an excellent outfit, as songs like “Just For A Second”, “Don’t Kill My Rage” and “Nature’s Hated” still bear out. They should have been massive, but unaccountably weren’t.
Steve, lest we forget him, is also represented elsewhere in our record collection: he went on to feature for Shinkansen mainstays Cody, put out solo electronic outings (as Cathode) on labels including 555 and Static Caravan, and is now one half of Warm Digits.
But none of what happened later should detract or distract from Shelley’s sole EP. This lead track is a minor classic, and one of the few Sarah releases that is probably overlooked because it was on the label (late on – as SARAH 98), rather than the usual claim that bands got more attention than they would otherwise merit by virtue of appearing on a Sarah 7”. Dickon explains, in a reasoned matter-of-fact way, why we shouldn’t have children, and a lovely (if slightly muddily-recorded) weave of guitars encircle him. It’s quite a unique, almost inspirational, record.
16. The Harvest Ministers “If It Kills Me And It Will”
Really not completely sure that maudlin Irish tunesters the Harvest Ministers were all that great, despite eagerly purchasing all their Sarah stuff and their later LP on Vinyl Japan at the time, but their tenure on Sarah was well worth it just for this catchy and rollicking piano-driven popsong, a spritely if lyrically downcast wave that rolls, crashes and pirouettes as the band wrestle with, bemoan, but end up basically just having to come to terms with, ‘a Catholic education’.
17. East River Pipe "She's A Real Good Time"
A, and, for, good, I, know, me, real, she's, time, you, we.
That’s it. 12 words. What could you do with just 12 words? Well, East River Pipe can construct a complete and beautiful pop song with them, a perfect example of how adept FM Cornog was/is at using lyrical minimalism to the fullest effect.
There are not many Sarah artists whose very finest work was actually for a different label, but we still have the “Mel” LP and “Miracleland” single (both for Matt Haynes’ post-Sarah “solo project”, Shinkansen) down as East River Pipe’s absolute peak; although that's really not to say that we haven't found things to adore on every subsequent Merge album down the years, nor to suggest that we're not fond of the vast majority of FM Cornog's Sarah output, because we *so* are.
Just like “Miracleland” (which has 18 different words in its entire lyric), far from feeling cheated by the lack of variation and vocabulary in “She’s A Good Time”, you instead feel you are in the presence of rare majesty. Good slow songs, as we have said before, are perhaps the hardest thing for any artist to pull off. Good slow songs with repetitive lyrics evidence, in our view, something bordering on true genius.
18. The Orchids “Thaumaturgy”
The Orchids. We got their back here. This was the delayed 7" with the dubtastic outro, the swooning comedown after the dancier entanglements of the album that preceded it. It encapsulates their art, and their contradictions. It’s a gem. That is all.
19. The Sugargliders “Top 40 Sculpture”
Have we ever mentioned the Sugargliders before? Oh, yes we just might have. If you can’t be bothered to scroll down a few miles to read it, this is what we said regarding this tune (apologies in advance that most of it is a typical ILWTTISOTT digression):
“We vividly recall the first time we heard "Top 40 Sculpture", in our student room over Emden quad, and thinking how - somehow - the Sugargliders had managed to ascend to another level. And how, after singing "Saturdays can still provide some comfort..." they sang something that sounded like "lately Allison/carry along my goal", and *that* got us in a further tizzy because we wondered whether they were following Tramway's example andshoehorning-in a Bristol Rovers reference (yes, it sounds barking mad now, butbear in mind that Sarah Records were from Bristol, [Malcolm] Allison was Rovers' boss around that time, the Sugargliders were sports fans, and we were young and stupid...) and only when "There And Back Again Lane" came out did the sleevenotes proclaim the actual words: "Laidley - Allison - Carey - Longmire - goal!" and that was even better, a shout to North Melbourne and to another code, and that line especially makes us smile every single time, even more than the beautiful overlapping vocals, the tremendous lyrics, the *divine* trumpet sound. And though we'd have *hated* to think it then, it was right that "Top 40 Sculpture" was the last Sugargliders single, because it was probably unstoppable.”
20. 14 Iced Bears "Sure To See"
I'm getting shivers from listening to all these songs in a row, bringing back flashbacks of a boy who really was far too callow for his own good…
Yes, we’ve mentioned 14 Iced Bears before, indeed, not so long ago, but you need to understand that this song was the one that really set us on the road with them, made us realise that they were not *just* another “good band" you heard on Peel, but one who we would end up standing up for when our mates slagged them off, that we’d be on the ends of taunts for liking, that we would defend against some of the atrocious rubbish preferred by our school contemporaries (My Jealous God, ffs!)
“Sure To See” is the most delicate, quivering thing, like a shy animal being slowly awoken, and the first minute of dainty guitar lines slowly hoving into view is, to this day, absolutely magical.
21. Tramway “Technical College”
Something you may have noticed about this comp is that it starts with noisier, faster stuff and ends with some extremely laid-back ballads. We’re not sure why that happened, but on reflection we rather like the way it turned out.
This song seems to break so many rules. There’s the rather strange title, which bears no obvious resemblance to the lyric, and it’s a serenely slow, gliding, barely-punctuated piece that draws out swathes of keyboards and breathy, high-in-mix vocals. (You would not guess in a million years from this track that the one time we saw Tramway live, at the Thekla, they were rumbustious and in-yer-face wonderful, with the singer in his England top, swigging lager with a Britpop-predicting "no-one likes us, we don't care" swagger!) We’d accept it may be an acquired taste, but every word of this song is indelibly marked on my brain, and we would follow this song to the ends of the Weston sands.
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We’ve no doubt by now that some of you will be, at best, apoplectic about the bands and songs we’ve missed out: we dearly wanted to include a number of other treasured favourites, not limited to the Hit Parade’s “Autobiography”, Even As We Speak’s “Beautiful Day”, the Sweetest Ache’s “Selfish”, the Poppyheads’ “Dreamabout”, Gentle Despite rocking out (sort of) with “Torment To Me”, Aberdeen’s “Fireworks” and St. Christopher’s “All Of A Tremble”… Perhaps we’ll treat ourselves to a volume two before the year is out.
