A simple joy of physical format products – the ability to pinpoint precise times and places associated with them. For me, Brian Eno’s 1997 album release ‘The Drop’, (All Saints, ASCD32), always takes me back to a summer morning on the ground floor of HMV’s flagship London Store on Oxford Street, on a brief city break, where I was loaded up with a shopping list of records to look out for across the many and varied record shops of the great city. New and exotic, second-hand and scarce – the list was long. This album had only just come out and was on that list…
^ Brian Eno – ‘The Drop’ – 1997 Japanese 2 x CD edition
We’ve visited Drinking Electricity once before, with their ‘Cruising Missiles’ 45, which was my introduction to the band and their work. I’d go on to buy the subsequent single releases on and off as they came out, where their own original synth pop sound would emerge. This single though was their own unique minimal synth rock’n’roll take with a cover version of the 1976 Flamin’ Groovies track, ‘Shake Some Action’. Like the band’s previous cover version of Johnny Kidd & the Pirates’ ‘Shakin’ All Over’, this was again a faster tempo, stripped down angular guitar thrashing and synth interpretation. Depending on how well you get on with late 70s/early 80s minimal synth pop and its production values versus the original, lushly produced power-pop take of the Flamin’ Groovies, this may well take a bit of getting used to. In the context of a produced-to-death, auto-tuned attention deficit get-to-the-chorus within a count of seconds not minutes of modern pop, this is beamed in from another world.
^ Drinking Electricity ‘Shake Some Action’ UK 7″ front cover design
A week ago I posted about the 2017 MusikExpress magazine exclusive of ‘Die Roboter’ (3-D edit) 7″ single and trailed the release of another addition to the ongoing series of exclusives, ‘Heimcomputer’, due for release with the June 2021 issue of the magazine. A week on and I now have a copy of that arrived to hand…
^ Kraftwerk – ‘Heimcomputer’ MusikExpress magazine June 2021 issue German 7″ single
What is it? A one-sided 7″ single with a 3 minute 33 seconds edit of the ‘3-D’ re-recording of ‘Die Roboter’ given away exclusively with the German magazine MusikExpress in its August 2017 issue. The flipside, rather than completely blank, still has a red label design with the pixelated band members logo and has an etched artwork design on the vinyl, with ‘KRAFTWERK’ (top) and ‘12345678’ (bottom) in the familiar pixelated font so beloved of many a Kraftwerk release from 1981 onwards.
^ Kraftwerk ‘Die Roboter’ MusikExpress magazine German 7″ single front cover
A small but historical selections of period badges, of a Post-Punk flavour this time round. None of your recent eBay purchases here, I can vouch that all of these designs pictured date back to 1981/82, which is when I picked them up and swiftly fastened them to lapel or pocket flap to sport around town. They would have almost certainly been from 1-UP records in Aberdeen, when they were still to be found on Rosemount Viaduct.
