The Boys From Brazil

Here's another strange one from Y, The Boys From Brazil. I should see the movie some day (came out the year before Y, 1978)....



And from the flipside of Head's Sin Bin is the sample-laden 32A, beginning with "The hits just keep on coming" sample from Radio First Termer and including a Pop Group sample among a slew of other favorites. See if you can identify them all!

Trap

By request, here's Trap, from We Are Time. This is labeled "demo 78" on the poster that came with some copies of We Are Time. I'm fairly certain that these are the demos that The Pop Group did with Hugh Cornwell of The Stranglers.




And here's a block of Rip Rig and Panic from their LP God. Thanks to Rupert for this one (and to his brother for digitizing it from vinyl.) Starts off with Knee Deep in Shit. (Warning: 10.6 MB - slow modems, get ready to wait.)

Thief of Fire

By request, here's Thief of Fire, the opening track on Y. (As originally released. The CD puts She is Beyond Good and Evil, a bonus track, before it.) Anyone recognize the face behind the lyrics? (From the poster that came with Y.)

And here's Thief of Fire from We Are Time, recorded live at The Electric Ballroom in 1979.



And just for the heck of it, here are The Good Missionaries (essentially Alternative TV under a different name - Mark P and friends) playing Thief of Fire, with "Mark and Simon - Pop Grouping" live at St. Andrews Uni, 13May79. The Pop Group and Good Missionaries toured together.

We Are Time

From Y, a flawless example of Dennis Bovell's dub as applied to The Pop Group. We Are Time. (Check out the Peel session version on the bootleg page.)



And just for a change of pace, not really fitting in the 'offspring' category, but almost, is Mark Springer. Springer shows up on We Are Time, so he'll do. He was also in Rip Rig and Panic. Here are two short songs from his solo LP, Piano. Live Embers Disperse and So To Say.

Thanks, Sheldon, for the songs.

Blind Faith

"I had my tongue removed at birth." Yet another of my faves. Maybe there aren't any I don't really like. This is from For How Much Longer but kinda sounds like it could've been on Y. To me, at least. Weird, though, how much the chanted "Blind Faith" sounds like "Rob a Bank" which is later on the LP. Beautiful: Blind Faith


Glaxo Babies aren't really 'offspring' of The Pop Group. Dan Catsis/Katsis played with them, so I guess they're more like cousins than offspring. Whatever. I probably bought this 7" EP because of the Y label and liked them for having a similar if somewhat more, er, 'experimental' sound to The Pop Group. This was the only Glaxo Babies I had back in the day. Didn't know til much later that they also had poppier records in addition to other oddball post-punk funk stuff (Nine Months to the Disco). For reasons I can't explain, I've always loved the bizarre and meandering Dahij.

Blood Money

God I love this song. It may be a little challenging... well, I sincerely hope so, anyway. It's just so out there. Weird snake-charmer reed instruments (or are they Tibetan?); the bizarre, halting drum pattern, Mark Stewart wandering up and down a series of underground tunnels, wailing and chanting - it's the sort of thing that grabbed me about The Pop Group all those years ago. Check it out: Blood Money.



And here's Mark Stewart, doing a song called Blood Money 2, in 1986. It is not a cover. There are no similarities, that I can make out, beyond the title and the singer.

Feed the Hungry

Feed the Hungry is a sterling example of why The Pop Group gets labled punk/funk. A lovely disco song with crazy ass guitars and Mark growling his dire lyrics. Where else are you going to get lines like "Western bankers decide who lives and who dies"?



Allow me to introduce Pregnant, with the song Mood Master. Pregnant was Gareth's band after Head and, like Head, featured Rich Beale as vocalist. Whereas Head was kind of a wacky take on 80s hard rock bombast, Pregnant turned the weirdness up a notch. But, as it says on Swarffinger Records' (never updated) site, "Out of weirdness come pop songs of a high calibre."