D.I.Y.: Starry Eyes - UK Pop II (1978-79)

well that was easy

At least a half dozen of my favourite songs of all time here. Gonna go with "Schooldays" over some of the heavier hitters, because its a song I'm sure I would never have encountered were it not for this comp.

Unbelievably impossible, maybe the most impossible one for me yet. "Ever Fallen in Love," "Get Over You," and "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" all inner-circle on the greatest ever list for me. And stuff like the Tourists track or "Up The Junction" would be the best song on almost any other comp. But I think I have to go with the one that has interacted most intensely with my feelings over the decades and that is Joe Jackson.

super classic selections. Actually really easy for me because Time Goes by So Slow by the Distractions is an important song to me. Early Factory oddity. I tried reissuing it but couldn't get any traction from Universal Records.

Otherwise I'd probably say Starry Eyes, though my opinion of it has dropped a tiny notch after hearing that Eddie and the Hot Rods song!

Life Begins at the Hop is another fave though I have a complicated relationship with XTC. Interesting to note how many of the "hits" from Drums and Wires era were actually written by Colin Moulding, including this one.

(not that you need Universal to reissue that song, I was trying to reissue the whole catalog on a CD)

Easy choice for me again: "Life Begins at the Hop."

Another vote for impossible.

There's more in this list I'm unfamiliar with and will check out before voting. However will be difficult to dislodge Buzzcocks or Squeeze from the top 2.

Yes I think I know about 7 or 8 of these.

The Jags is always discussed as the song Elvis Costello didn’t write.

Oh of course I know that one too!

"Starry Eyes" always exists for me in the shadow of the (I think) superior Too Much Joy cover, which I discovered around the same time I got this comp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slz4rmatztY

I only know "Girl of My Dreams" because I was a Mike Oldfield completist as a kid - he plays tubular bells over the fade.

"Up the Junction" - Squeeze are fine but this has an annoying, repetitive melody that works against the apparent attempt to be wistful.

I voted for XTC in the previous poll; they're probably tied with The Buzzcocks here but I assume they'll get a lot of votes without mine.

how double dare you say that about the song of my people (south east london)!!!

If you think you don't know Back of My Hand, perhaps this will jog your memory:

"I gotcha numma (riddinonnabagamyhan)"

The ones I bought on 7”: Get Over You, Back Of My Hand, White Mice, Time Goes By So Slow, Is She Really Going Out With Him. A lot more here that I don’t recognise, but The Distractions will take a lot of beating (I am fairly sure that it was my first Factory purchase).

NB The Squares single is “This Is Airebeat”, not “Airbeat”. The Aire is a river. It’s a droll Mersey comparison.

Oof!

Agree that there's way too many amazing songs on this to pick just one, and like many others it opened up a world of music to be at the time. I've got albums from a dozen of these acts.

The Yachts are underrated/unknown! And I keep getting The Tourists mixed up with Tours who had a fabulous single, "Language School".

"Girl of My Dreams" by Bram Tchaikovsky is possibly the most perfect power-pop song of all-time so voted that, just over the title track which is also a perfect power-pop confection.

some great songs, but no real reason to look past the first one in a poll haha

buzzcocks song has been kind of ruined for me by over-exposure to it

but all the same, i would've voted for 'get over you' anyway

The Yachts gave a member to the very underrated It’s Immaterial.

Btw I’m playing all 7”s on the Lot Radio tonight at 10pm eastern including plenty of this type of stuff.

Mo-dettes

I was wondering whether this was the comp with "Back of My Hand" which meant I didn't have to make a decision.

How are the Jags albums? I've never heard anything but "Back of My Hand," which I've loved since middle school.

"Airebeat" was the name of The Squares' indie label where their first single was released. That one was a bit clunky, but they signed to Sire on the strength of it, and I assume it got remixed or re-recorded.

too tough, again.

i have got it down to a 3 way tie among buzzcocks, mo-dettes and squeeze. the jags, joe jackson and the tourists close runners up.

but, despite having probably heard it 236879 times, it's gotta be "up the junction".

Tough choice between XTC (one of my favorite guitar solos of all time) and Buzzcocks (one of my favorite songs of the era).

wouldn't have taken stirmonster as a Squeeze fan!

listening to up the junction now...man, I'm no "it was so much better than" type guy despite what people may think. I think there's tons of great music being made now. But going over these comps, no doubt that was an incredible time for just amazing hooks, combined with the punk/new wave influence of being concise as well.

'Cool for Cats' was one of the first albums I ever bought, though i only had it for a few months as i sold it to help pay for a Motorhead ticket (my taste was moving fast at the age of 11/12).

"Up The Junction" was SO huge here and is still on the radio all the time. It and "Take Me I'm Yours" are probably the only Squeeze songs i still care about.

Tough choice between XTC (one of my favorite guitar solos of all time) and Buzzcocks (one of my favorite songs of the era).

^ this

usually when I have tough choices like that I just fail to vote

"Up The Junction" was SO huge here and is still on the radio all the time. It and "Take Me I'm Yours" are probably the only Squeeze songs i still care about.

― stirmonster, Tuesday, 25 October 2022 20:14 (forty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Goodbye Girl, If I Didn't Love You...

I can’t think of two songs that I love singing along to more than “Cool For Cats” and “Up The Junction”; they came slap bang in the middle of my “find the lyrics in Smash Hits during the Top 40 Show” phase.

sorry but "Slap & Tickle" is my favorite

also isn't Cool For Cats, like, 2-3 years later than everything else on here?

Cool For Cats was 1979 as were several others on this list.

I don't think so, The Revillos, Modettes at first sight I'd say were much later than that Squeeze track.

And now I've looked, and all three are 1979

oh hmm, OK thanks! I did know the Revillos were from 1979 but I didn't think CFC was that early

Cool for Cats was March 79, White Mice was Dec 79

That, for me, was a big difference as by December I was earning money and going to gigs etc, whereas in March I was still at school.

The ones I’ve seen performed live:
1979: Back Of My Hand, Get Over You
1980: Time Goes By So Slow, Where’s The Boy For Me, Get Over You, (x2), Up The Junction
1983: Is She Really Going Out With Him
2009: Ever Fallen In Love…
2010: Up The Junction (x2)
2011: Get Over You (x3)

Winner: Get Over You (1979)

I'll go with "Ever Fallen," with scales tipped by cover by Fine Young Cannibals, which brought out a little suggestion of danceability, as I remember it (maybe wrongly). Also, I still miss FYC. Maybe unfair, but ain't sorry.
But "White Mice," which also sounds dancey to me, is a strong runner-up, like several others.

You saw the distractions play in 1980? Who else was on the bill?

btw last night's show on the Lot is up

https://soundcloud.com/thelotradio/superimpositions-special-guest-dan-selzer-the-lot-radio-10-24-2022

many very DIY (the series and the concept) selections

1. The Desperate Bicycles - Smokescreen
2. Essential Logic - Aerosol Burns
3. Flowers - (Life) After Dark
4. Pressler-Morgan - You’re Gonna Watch Me
5. 48 Chairs - Snap it Around
6. It’s Immaterial - A Gigantic Raft in the Philippines
7. The Lines - On The Air
8. England’s Glory - City of Fun
9. Mumps - Crocodile Tears
10. The Twinkeyz - Aliens in Our Midst
11. Plastic Idols - Einstein Experience
12. The Cigarettes - They’re Back Again, Here They Come
13. Airmail - In A Moment
14. The Fall - Various Times
15. Marc Riley - Favorite Sister
16. Garage Class - Terminal Tokyo
17. Monochrome Set - Surfing S.W. 12
18. Henry Badowski - Baby Sign Here With Me
19. Scars - All About You
20. Orange Juice - Blue Boy
21. Boots For Dancing - Hesitate
22. Mo-Dettes - White Mice
23. Ludus - My Cherry is in Sherry
24. The Mekons - Snow
25. Dexy’s Midnight Runners - Keep it Part Two (Inferiority Part One)
26. The Farmer’s Boys - More than a Dream
27. Associates - Message Oblique Speech
28. Metrophase - Cold Rebellion
29. Swell Maps - Let’s Build a Car
30. Subway Sect - Nobody’s Scared
31. Neptune’s Car - Lucky Charms
32. Art Yard - The Law
33. Student Teachers - Channel 13
34. The Records -Starry Eyes
35. Snips - 9 O’Clock
36. Neo - Tran-sister
37. D-Day - Every Time I Ask You Out
38. Suburban Lawns - Janitor
39. Dave Weckerman - Shore Leave

Great selections. Why on earth hasn't Marc Riley's Creepers been reissued?

dunno.

thanks!

Big Creepers fan here. There is a compilation cd that came out some years back but the albums each stand alone with a distinctive sound and vibe. The impression I get is that Riley doesnt think a lot of it is very good. The first two are very low-fi but excellent if you like that kind of thing. Live album is brilliant too.

BTW tne up on that Riley track there is Scanlon/Hanley/Hanley/Riley.

*the line-up I mean. Slates-era Fsll without Mark Smith.

Dan, I saw The Distractions as headliners at the Rock Garden in Convent Garden: spring 1980, shortly after the release of their second single “It Doesn’t Bother Me”.

Xpost yeah apparently Mark e Smith had said they could help him with it. Afterwards it was "I DIDN'T MEAN MAKE IT FOR HIM!"

They show up on the first Creepers album from the following year too, including a great/weird narrated track from Steve Hanley, but it's possible those tracks were recorded at the same time as Favourite Sister. Scanlon gets a production credit for that album too, but maybe he just owned the tape recorder.

Riley is on the record about the end of his stint in The Fall but I don't know that anyone has really interviewed him in depth about the formation of the Creepers, founding In Tape Records and so on. On occasion he has been pretty flippant about it all but no doubt there is a good story there.

I was never into power pop but I've just traded my lazy Buzzcocks vote for Up the Junction.

Curious to see The Searchers show up on this; I’d forgotten about their late 1970s sort-of comeback, critically acclaimed at the time.

love that show on the lot, dan. i don't understand why i cannot begin to find/access it except for through the link above, but i'm glad for the link, for sure! love that set.

Great comp! Listening to it now. Is that a Millennial Whoop in “Life Begins at the Hop”? That Mo-dettes singer sounds exactly like Toni Basil. Voting for boring old “Ever Fallen in Love”.

"Starry Eyes" always exists for me in the shadow of the (I think) superior Too Much Joy cover, which I discovered around the same time I got this comp.

― Les hommes de bonbons (cryptosicko), Monday, October 24, 2022 1:48 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Agree about the Too Much Joy version. I remember being a little bit let down when I tracked down the Records version, although I've grown to like it. It's well-written and energetic, but TMJ knocked it out of the park.

Never even heard that TMJ version despite…whatever. Will have to listen.

Streaming services seem to think they wrote it.

Also seem to think they wrote that Nick Lowe bio.

I have a one-off 7" done by members of Yo La Tengo, Screaming Trees, Das Damen and Skunk (as Dr Janet) that has a Starry Eyes cover on it, pretty good. probably prefer the Eddie & The Hot Rods song though

Hmm. Seems kind of hard to stream the original “Starry Eyes” so here is a YouTube link for convenience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAH1ioLiaHw

Strongly recommend that Poptopia series, too!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Interesting result.

Could easily have gone with the Buzzcocks here but instead I was the deciding vote for Joe Jackson!

I love Joe Jackson, but I wish the comp included something more representative of the album, like Baby Stick Around or Got the Time.

Damn, can't believe the Tourists got 0, maybe I should have voted for them and left Ever and Is She in a tie

Joe Jackson seems to be inordinately popular in North America then?

Of the songs that got zero votes, I'm most bummed about "Let's Talk About the Weather" and "Mourning Star." If I didn't say so before, this is my favourite volume in the entire collection.

Poll for next disc going up later today, btw.

some great songs, but no real reason to look past the first one in a poll haha

― comedy khadafi (voodoo chili), Monday, October 24, 2022 2:55 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

for posterity, this was the buzzcocks

Joe Jackson seems to be inordinately popular in North America then?

His track was the only one here that was a Top 40 hit in the US (#21)

"Girl of My Dreams" hit #37, but the Joe Jackson song has stayed in rotation.

i can't get past the fact that got the time et al from look sharp! are sooo much better than isrgowh. i also think 2-5 et al are better here, but, isrgowh is good, it is pungently memorable, and tastes differ and all that.

I forgot to vote, but would've added another vote for Joe Jackson, with honorable mention to "Get Over You". I don't know if I'd ever heard that XTC song before. I instantly thought of the original "At the Hop" by Danny and the Juniors. Not sure if similar enough to deserve a writing credit, but definitely cut from a similar mold.

His track was the only one here that was a Top 40 hit in the US (#21)

This is "Steppin' Out" erasure!

Anyway, "Is She Really" is the one I knew at the time -- I certainly agree there are better early JJ tracks, even if you restrict to tracks that are kind of bitter and quippy about love ("Happy Loving Couples"). But yeah, this song is kind of individual, it picks one thing to do and does it as well as it has been or probably can be done

xp I meant that “Is She Really” was the only track on this compilation to break the US Top 40 - actually one of the two, per Halfway’s correction.

D.I.Y.: Blank Generation - The New York Scene (1975-78)