New EP Out Now
At last, our new 7-track EP Genre Music Is The Enemy is ready to be unleashed. You can download it free at LastFM. You can also download the artwork here, if you want to print it yourself.
Read on for tracklisting, credits and Alex’s detailed sleeve notes.
1) Hand-Me-Downs (Made Me The Man I Am) (Williams)
2) Sheep (Williams)
3) Is It The E.C.T? (Williams)
4) Something’s Got To Give (Williams)
5) Knickers In The Photocopier (Williams)
6) A Moment of Clarity(Flangers of Fury version) (Williams)
7) Touretti Spaghetti (Williams)
Alex Williams – Vocals, Guitars, Mandola, Other Things
Gavin Robinson – The Bass, Vocals
Leo Cookman – Keyboards, Vocals
Luke Willis – The Drums, Vocals
1) Hand-Me-Downs (Made Me The Man I Am)
Inspired by a Buff Medways gig, amongst other things. Features a riff I have been trying to use for years! Features twin-Rickenbacker action (12 string borrowed off Alistair Atkin- Ta!), stupid tape echo noises, Hammond (played by me!), Gav on backing vocals and eight string bass, Luke on drums.
2) Sheep
We played this live a great deal last summer. Lately, it’s morphed into cod-girl group Spectorian silliness, but this is the original, which revisits the break-neck rhythms of Buried Alive! Me, Gav and Luke do the ‘Heys’, I play Mandola for the first and so far only time and there’s both six AND eight string basses, plus twelve string guitar: 34 string action!
3) Is It the ECT?
I nearly dropped this one but everyone seemed to like it, so I here it is! I included a reference to isobars on hearing that their future in BBC weather forecasts was endangered! Also includes various references to being skint in an inhospitable seaside town, just for a change!! Those fruity twin lead lines are provided by a 12 string Shergold through an Akai tape machine, a Coloursound fuzz-wah-swell and a WEM (Westminster, we think); usual second hand serendipity where gear’s concerned!
4) Something’s Got To Give
We played this a lot a few years back but never recorded it. Originally it was much slower, intended as a ‘head-nodder’. This version is much quicker, possibly because we had 10 minutes left in the studio! I’m particularly pleased with the bass- a four string Marathon through a Boss DS2, Fender Tremelux and Trace Elliot cab! Guitar parts are the old white Masquerader through a Fender Super Reverb.
5) Knickers In The Photocopier
Also written some years ago, when I had to find ever more creative ways of passing my time as a desk-bound office gopher. We said to Leo: “it’s in A, there’s a Hammond organ, do what you fancy!” I think he enjoyed himself… Ludicrous backing vocals by me, Leo and Powley. Jis- lobbing guitar solo done on a Burns with the Coloursound F/W/S, too much fuzz and a Fender amp.
6) A Moment of Clarity (Flangers of Fury Version)
A totally different version to the single, recorded at a previous session. We liked both, so we released both. Not vastly different, but I think this is my favourite.
7) Touretti Spaghetti
This is taken from a session we did with Dan Jones in Tankerton in 2006, that also yielded a new version of It’s A Small Town intended for a film soundtrack that is yet to materialise! Made up in about ten minutes flat, it also features Luke blowing into a snare drum, kazoo-style!
So there you have it! This Supersize EP captures a transitional phase between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ line ups and is the first time we’ve been able to record (mostly) ‘as live’ in a ‘proper’ studio (largely due to not having a spectacularly talented but agoraphobic individual on drums!). All tracks (bar No.7) were recorded by Matt Barwick at Bigsqueak and several feature their stockpile of equipment- including their Premier kit, Hammond Organ (& Leslie), Rickenbacker 330 12 string (Alistair’s), an old Silvertone (doing the flange-bit on MOC) and various Fender and Trace Elliot amps.