Sandwich Bars & Barbed Wire

Cassette compilation recorded 5th October 1986, which I think makes it the oldest surviving C90 in my DIY collection. Strangely enough, I couldn't seem to manage to stretch a compilation over two sides. Side 2 was dedicated to a slight rejig of Prefab Sprout's Steve McQueen, adopting the amended (and lawsuit-dodging) name used fot the album's release in the USA.

So, what was 15 year old me listening to? Well, the first two were more of a nod to my friend Stuart, who was a huge fan of U2. I didn't own any of their albums at the time but I had Sunday Bloody Sunday on an import 12" single. 

 

The Bridge by Cactus World News originally appeared on U2's Mother Records label, so again would have been of interest. I had the subsequent reissue on MCA Records, I suspect as part of a hard sell from Dave at Sound Seekers as I ended up with the 12" single and the limited edition 7" with free 2-track cassette. The original mixtape featured the album/single version but the running time was so short that I've swapped it here for the 12" remix.

Little needs to be said about Perfect Skin by Lloyd Cole & The Commotions. Simply one of the best singles of the 1980s from one of the best albums of the 1980s. I still get a joy from listening to it, nearly 40 years on.

 

I rescued the 7" single of Shakespeare's Sister by The Smiths from the ex-chart bargain bin at Woolworths. Worth the (reduced) price alone for the cover picture of Pat Phoenix alone, but a killer A- and B-side. 

 

Another slight tweak here, as the cassette originally featured the NME Version of Uncomplicated by Elvis Costello & The Attractions, from a cover mounted 7" single. I do still have it somewhere but I haven't got around to ripping it to MP3. Instead I've included the album version which I don't think is all that different, to be honest. 

 

Kick Over The Statues was also from a cover mounted 7" single, this time from the premiere issue of short-lived music magazine, The Hit. This was probably my first introduction to Redskins, although I would also have seen them on TV, on Channel 4's The Tube.  This song inevitably resurfaced when the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol was pulled down and dumped into the Harbour water in 2020.

 

A brace of Liverpool bands produced by Ian Broudie. First up, The Icicle Works with Understanding Jane. I became obsessed with the band after buying their Seven Singles Deep collection. This was another Sound Seekers special purchase, as I recall. I got the 7" single with a free 7" single featuring two live songs and then the 5-track 'cassingle', with three more live songs. I managed to resist the temptation to buy the 12" single with an exclusive cover of Van Morrison. Understanding Jane is not the band's finest moment but the song gained an added resonance a few years later when I fell in love with a woman called Jane and it became one of 'our' songs.

 

The second Broudie production is of course Echo & The Bunnymen, with the brilliant The Back Of Love. At the time, I only owned their 'greatest hits' collection Songs To Learn & Sing, which I played constantly. It hasn't aged a bit.

 

Beggars Banquet seemed to be a label that had an inadvertent draw on me: the aforementioned The Icicle Works, The Cult, The Fall, Gary Numan; The Go-Betweens would come to me years later. And then these two: Gene Loves Jezebel and Bauhaus. I almost certainly encountered both in my brother's record collection, but then I'd also bought the One Pound Ninety-Nine various artists compilation, 12 songs for the bargain price of (you guessed it) £1.99.

 

I've previously written about buying the Bauhaus collection 1979-1983 and the first Gene Loves Jezebel album I bought was Discover, which came with a free live album, Glad To Be Alive. It's a patchy album but Sweetest Thing is a highlight. I'd liked All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Bauhaus since I first heard it on my brother's copy of The Sky's Gone Out and it's still up there for me.

 

The final three songs are a rather odd bit of sequencing. I suspect I had lost a grip on my timings at this point and was just looking for songs to fill the remaining space with less of a care about whether they fit with the rest of the compilation...!

 

I had Public Image Ltd.'s 1986 album on vinyl, so it was titled Album. The title changed to reflect the format, i.e. Cassette and Compact Disc. I also had the 12" single of Home, which also featured the album version of Round as a B-side. It's a good song (and album), albeit with a 'heavy' production characteristic of the time. 

 

The same can be said of Tears For Fears and Chris Hughes, with their huge, none-more-Eighties commercial smash Songs From The Big Chair. Broken was a recycled B-side that was used on the album to sandwich Head Over Heels. When the latter was released as a single, the same approach was adopted for the 12" single's Preacher Mix. The mixtape used the opening segment of Broken, Roland Orzabal doing a pretty ropey Martin Luther King impression, the rest of the song thankfully remaining instrumental. I've less love for Tears For Fears than I had in the early to mid Eighties and this track is definitely out of place on this compilation.

 

To bring things back to a suitable finish, The Jesus & Mary Chain crash in with Taste Of Cindy. This featured along with Redskins, The Style Council and Simply Red on The Hit magazine freebie 7" single and it was some years later before I bought Psychocandy, and a considerable time after I'd seen them live in concert, which seems bizarre in retrospect. A great song, over and done in one hundred seconds. 'Nuff said.

 

1) Sunday Bloody Sunday (Album Version): U2 (1983)

2) The Bridge (12" Remix): Cactus World News (1986)

3) Perfect Skin (Album Version): Lloyd Cole & The Commotions (1984)

4) Shakespeare's Sister (Single Version): The Smiths (1985)

5) Uncomplicated (Album Version): Elvis Costello & The Attractions (1986)

6) Kick Over The Statues (Ramsey McKinnock Mix): Redskins (1985)

7) Understanding Jane (Album Version): The Icicle Works (1986)

8) The Back Of Love (Album Version): Echo & The Bunnymen (1982)

9) Sweetest Thing (Album Version): Gene Loves Jezebel (1986)

10) All We Ever Wanted Was Everything: Bauhaus (1982)

11) Round: Public Image Ltd. (1986)

12) Broken (Preacher Mix): Tears For Fears (1985)

13) Taste Of Cindy (Album Version): The Jesus & Mary Chain (1985)

1982: The Back Of Love EP: 8

1982: The Sky's Gone Out: 10

1983: War: 1

1984: Rattlesnakes: 3

1985: Head Over Heels EP: 12 

1985: Psychocandy: 13

1985: Shakespeare's Sister EP: 4

1985: The Hit RED Hot EP: 6 

1986: Album: 11

1986: Blood & Chocolate: 5

1986: Discover: 9

1986: The Bridge EP: 2

1986: Understanding Jane EP: 7

Sandwich Bars & Barbed Wire (45:15) (Box) (Mega)