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I feel bad commenting on the go-betweens in a comsat angels thread.
what the hell...... the Bright yellow Bright orange record which i
believe is the first comeback is totally worth giving a listen.
Comsat Angels not crap till they got to a point in the eighties.
What about The Sound? i got into them around the time i first heard comsat. While not as adventurous, their first album Jeapordy is pretty amazing.The Sound also took a dive in the mid-eighties.
Just to add to the rambling confusion the grant mcclennan solo album
Horsebreaker Star is preety swell and worth a listen.
oh well, back to the sewage treatment plant.

I only have Fiction on cassette, but I must get more early albums.

Fiction is pretty great. It seems like a kissing cousin of 154 or Seventeen Seconds.

Anyone know if there's any particular relevance to the Ballard short story of the same name (other than just being named after it)?

run joe, run wrote:Anyone know if there's any particular relevance to the Ballard short story of the same name (other than just being named after it)?

I think they're just named for it, but I might be wrong.

Alrighty, I've gotten my hands on Waiting for a Miracle and Sleep No More and they are both pretty great with Sleep No More taking the first prize. Great album. Drums recorded in an eleveator shaft. What more do you want?

As an interesting side note, my cassette copy of Fiction came with "Do the Empty House" and "It's History" as extras. They are also integrated into the running order of the album, so listening to the cd's was odd at first as I was so used to hearing the "cassette" running order of songs.

Next to find: My Mind's Eye which was described to me by Chris Bjorklund as "A highly improbable late career gem. Like they left the rehearsal room after "Fiction" to get a coffee, came back in and made a great record."

The only thing I have from this band is a 7 inch called Red Planet, says it's from '79 and it's fuckin' awesome...The Jesus Lizard should have done a cover of either the title track off this, or 'Specimen #2' I would seriously like the hear that....didn't Tar do a Comsat Angels cover at some point? What song did they do? One of these?
Wait, I just found another track by them on a comp in my collection... Jesus, it's called 'Day one' and it's fuckin' horrible....really fuckin horrible.

Comsats kind of remind me of the band Valina.
Great drumming. Chugging yet melodic bass. Cool guitar parts.

I say not crap. I forgive the turn towards the mainstream because that just seemed to happen to so many good bands.
Maybe that's what buckets of coke does to a band?

I mean really, what happened to Gang of Four? Every band cranks out a dud or two, but I wouldn't have thought it was possible for a band to go so downhill, starting from such a lofty height. Then I heard Songs of the Free - the nadir, right? Oh no...then came Hard, and Mall. To be fair, two guys left, but Shreikback was no prize either. I also don't have a hell of a lot of praise for King Butcher*.

What about Cheap Trick? Heart? REM?

So, if a band really kicks it once, and I mean *really* kicks it, I have to cut them slack.
I try to remember them when they were young, beautiful and full of promise, not as they were later, ugly and disfigured from the firey car wreck.

-A

*Edit:Years after posting this, I noticed an error. Originally, I said "King Swamp," Dave Allen's band, who were actually pretty good. I meant King Butcher, Jon King's band, who I didn't like very much. Doesn't matter much anymore anyway - Go4 is back together, where they belong, and sounding great.

First three Comsat Angels albums and a Peel Session are being reissued by Renascent sometime this year.

http://www.renascent.co.uk

I've also found a myspace page in honor of the group. Wow. I think their 80's slide into crapdom was due to them having to please their labels and such. I'm going to be getting my hands on My Mind's Eye soon though, and that sounds like it was a return to form for the group.

Total CRAP.

Terrible.

Ugh.

I cannot stand this band.