Thursday, December 21, 2006

Those Naughty Corinthians



A woeful two pages is all that Lord Google can manage if you search for "Those Naughty Corinthians". Most of the hits are from my Last.fm charts, a couple from biblical scholars ecumenical ramblings and then some brief discussion on the TVP's list about the long lost (Wigan-based?) turn-of-the-90's fanzine band.

I originally posted the two mp3's I had of this genius group on Duckworth Square and then deleted them a few months back to make some headroom for this occasional mp3 blog. Then the other day I had a nice email from another frustrated Googler asking me where they had gone...so here they are again. In all their ripped to mp3 from a 15 year old cassette GLORY.

Those Naughty Corinthians - Pie

Those Naughty Corinthians - Butter Mountain

These two songs were on the Audacious cassette that featured a local Derby band we were mates with called The Moving Jelly Brothers, and a cracking Pixies cover by the perpetually-on-tour Mega City 4, but it was these two crazy pieces of Lancashire insanity that topped the class.

Both songs feature, what I imagine was, the singers catchphrase of "oooooh YISSSSS!!" at various points, along with some angular guitar parts that were straight out of the Ron Johnson school of "riffs that make no musical sense". Comedy accents have never sounded so good as they do on "Pie" as the singer likens life to a pie and asks the eternal question that has baffled mankind throughout the ages - "ooo is the E numburrrrr?"

"Butter Mountain" seems somewhat more autobiographical as the bragadoccio lyrics tell us how ace he looks in his yellow ski pants...

I've never seen or heard any other tracks by These Naughty fellas (although MusicStack lists a compilation of St. Helens bands on Idea Records with a song of theirs called "Right Off" which I'd dearly love to hear.)

Needless to say if anyone else has any of their other recordings or any kind of biography - get in touch!

YISSSS!

    UPDATE May 2023

This still remains the most popular post on my blog, purely because the band are still such a mystery. I've had blog comments from the wife of the bass player and one of the children of the band, but all posted anonymously with no contact details which has made it impossible to follow up, but since I originally posted this in December 2006, I was sent some tracks by Rhodri Marsden off a demo tape he had. All fantastic as you can imagine (track titles "Greater Manchester Buses Are Rubbish", "Do The Ayatollah", "The Weather Is Shit", "Give Us A Clue" and "Eddie The Eagle"). I also tracked down the Idea compilation with the track "Right Off". Then just last week someone contacted me via Twitter (thanks Elon!) to say that they'd found a demo tape in a cardboard box in a Manchester fleamarket and did I want to hear it? It contains 3 "new" tracks to me "I Hate Cats", "Ermintrude" and "Big Ribs". Wonderful stuff. The internet remains a magical place.

As ever I beg anyone who knows anything more about the band to get in touch. DO you have the cassette that came free with Issue #1 of Split Ends fanzine? Was the apocryphal track "Barry Died Of Ignorance" ever committed to tape? It may take another 17 years, but maybe one day we'll know...

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Solex



Quite simply the best Pavement cover version ever..taken from a Solex Peel Session circa 2002, sometimes listening to a whole Solex record can hurt my head because there are just so many ideas and so much going on, but on this track she gets it absolutely 100% perfectly spot on correct. And also very RIGHT. At the same time.

I guarantee that even hardcore Pavement fans will struggle to furrow their indie brow to this one..it just bounces!

Solex - Shady Lane

Well done Elisabeth Esselink!

Official Solex Site (includes shop for buying CD's 'n' stuff)