Leicester Bangs on Shake The Foundations
The 49 entrants in part one are the individual tracks featured in the boxset Shake The Foundations. Please see the link for a list of the match-ups. You join us during Round One…
Leicester’s Amazing Post-Punk Compilations Super-League Part One: Shake The Foundations
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Oh, there’s no link displaying. Let’s remedy that before we kick off.
https://challonge.com/2ul8cykx
Round 2 match 1: ACR vs. Furniture.
Not fair – that’s like having Germany vs Brazil the same World Cup group stage.
Ah, but you’re failing to legislate for my ongoing prejudices, and here’s one: I have never really rated ACR. What’s more that version of Guess Who isn’t even the best version. I can confidently predict now that Furniture will win that match.
ACR vs Furniture? The band that did Do the Du, Knife Slits Water, All Night Party, Won’t Stop Loving You and the recent mighty Emperor Machine vs the band who did errm, (the admittedly great) Brilliant Mind is a bit like Brazil vs The Faroe Islands isn’t it? World beaters vs plucky but dignified underdogs? And I do quite like Furniture…
It’s the songs, though, not the bands. Guess Who is okay, but that version is bettered elsewhere and it’s certainly no Knife Slits Water, so Furniture win that particular battle (though as you say not the war).
The parent album to Brilliant Mind, The Wrong People, is an undiscovered* masterpiece, as good as Sextet or Force. And they did two other albums, a mini-LP and eight singles.
(*) Undiscovered because Stiff only pressed 1000 copies and went bust the day it was released. I spent almost 20 years fighting to get it reissued. Yes, that’s my name in the credits of the 2010 Cherry Red CD.
Good work! Clearly a band I need to look at harder.
Plus… no Furniture, no Transglobal Underground. The final Furniture album, Food, Sex & Paranoia, came out only a year before Temple Head:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xV7-X55vUU
Spot on. And well done on the reissue, especially the extra tracks (two of which I didn’t have)
I honestly think Cherry Red only released it to shut me up! But then I started banging on about Fiat Lux instead…
“Cherry Red only released it to shut me up” – AW t-shirt
Round one round-up!
Surface Mutants When Are We? (Now We Are)
Vs
Furniture Why Are We In Love
Winner: Furniture
Maximum Joy Stretch
Family Fodder Disco Purge
Winner: Maximum Joy
Tones On Tail Lions
Glaxo Babies Shake (The Foundations)
Winner: Tones on Tail
Paul Haig Blue For You
Mataya Clifford Living Wild
Winner: Mataya Clifford
Kissing The Pink Big Man Restless
Electric Chairs So Many Ways
Winner: Kissing the Pink
Vicious Pink Cccan’t You See
Nightmares In Wax Black Leather
Winner: Vicious Pink
The Fun Boy Three Faith, Hope And Charity
The Chicken Granny Quit The Body
Winner: Fun Boy Three
Quando Quango
Normil Hawaiians Obedience
Winner: Quando Quango
Shock Dream Games
The Diagram Brothers We Are All Animals
Winner: Shock
Wide Boy Awake Set Fighter
The Pop Group Rob A Bank
Winner: Wide Boy Awake
Ian Dury Trust Is A Must
Playgroup Hoggs Might Fly
Winner: Ian Dury
Visage Frequency 7 (Dance Mix
Vee VV Keep Beat
Winner: Visage.
Thomas Leer Don’t
London Underground Dreams Are Better
Winner: London Underground
Fashion Move On
Animal Magic Get It Right
Winner: Animal Magic
Perfect Zebras What Dance Is This?
Machine Gun Hogg & Co. Bed Bound Saga
Winner: Perfect Zebras
Six Sed Red Bang ‘Em Right
The 012 Asbestos Lead Asbestos
Winner: The 012
Jesse Rae Rusha
Group Therapy Arty-Fact
Winner: Jesse Rae
Some really good songs eliminated in Round One. Hated saying goodbye to Six Sed Red, Machine Gun Hogg, Fashion and The Pop Group, but what do you do?
Onto Round Two.
Round Two Round-Up
A Certain Ratio Guess Who?
Furniture Why Are We In Love
Winner: Furniture
Maximum Joy Stretch
Tones On Tail Lion
Winner: Tones on Tail
Medium Medium Serbian Village
Mataya Clifford Living Wild
Winner: Medium Medium
The Higsons Push Out The Boat
Kissing The Pink Big Man Restless
Winner: Kissing the Pink
Simple Minds This Fear Of Gods
Vicious Pink Cccan’t You See
Winner: Simple Minds
Modern Romance Can You Move
The Fun Boy Three Faith, Hope And Charity
Winner: The Fun Boy Three
The Stranglers Love 30
Quando Quango Tingle
Winner: Quando Quango
Jah Wobble Invaders Of The Heart (Mix One)
Shock Dream Games
Winner: Shock
23 Skidoo Coup
Wide Boy Awake Set Fighter
Winner: 23 Skidoo
C Cat Trance Hypnotised
Ian Dury Trust Is A Must
Winner: C Cat Trance
Blue Rondo À La Turk Sarava
Visage Frequency 7 (Dance Mix)
Winner: Visage
John Cooper Clarke Post-War Glamour Girl
London Underground Dreams Are Better
Winner: London Underground
Haircut 100 Evil Smokestacking Baby
Animal Magic Get It Right
Winner: Haircut 100
Wide Boy Awake Slang Teacher
Perfect Zebras What Dance Is This?
Winner: Wide Boy Awake
The Passage Born Every Minute
The 012 Asbestos Lead Asbestos
Winner: The 012
The Passions Skin Deep
Jesse Rae Rush
Winner: The Passions
I’ve always found The Higsons a bit hit-and-miss, but Push the Boat Out is great, and only just loses out to Kissing the Pink’s enigmatic Big Man Restless, a long time favourite. Elsewhere, Visage easily triumph over Blue Rondo a la Turk, a band I’ve never cared for; the Haircut 100 track, Evil Smokestacking Baby – completely new to me – ends up being the dark horse of the day, forcing us to bid a fond farewell to Animal Magic, and a throwaway Stranglers B-side, Love 30, gives the mighty Quando Quango a run for their money. Jah Wobble only just gives way to Shock while other sad-to-losers are Mataya Clifford, Ian Dury and Vicious Pink.
Meanwhile, the great white shark of the competition – and surely the one to beat – Coup by 23 Skidoo, makes its first appearance claiming the Wide Boy Awake scalp. Coup goes up against Visage next round. Cooking doesn’t get much tougher than this!
This is a great game, Leicester. Do you have one for every day of the Euros?
Thank you. The site* lets you make whatever league you want, but I’m sticking to post-punk for the time being.
(*The link, for anyone who missed it: https://challonge.com/2ul8cykx)
I agree Leicester, this is a brilliant idea. I have a mind to steal if for the Winds of Time NWOBHM box set and hey where’s everybody going?
Steal! Steal!
Raven versus Venom.
No score draw
Tygers Of Pan Tang versus Girlschool in the final
(Girlschool beating Saxon on penalties in the semi)
I’ve read that Girlschool could always be counted on for a semi appearance by those in the know.
hurrrrrrrrrrrr
Nah, Venom are the Uruguay of the NWOBHM Rigid. They make no friends whatsoever, can be downright nasty at times but ultimately are the most impressive overachievers there.
You can’t just slip a new song in in Round 2 against a Round 1 winner, surely?
I know what you mean — doesn’t seem fair does it? — but it was all auto-generated by the site.
Round 3 round-up
I won’t list them. It’s all in the link. To sum up, there were some easy decisions to make in this round, with the big-hitters (Visage, Simple Minds, 23 Skidoo) making short work of their respective opponents. Tones on Tail vs Furniture was a tough one, but there’s something unknowable about the Tones tune that sent it through. It’s the same quality that saw Medium Medium triumph over Kissing the Pink. There was more soul-searching over Haircut 100 vs Wide Boy Awake. The Haircut 100 song is absolutely lovely – and if you haven’t heard it, I urge you to seek it out — but in the end I decided it was not quite in keeping with the compilation’s theme, thus I put Wide Boy Awake through.
Pitting The Passions against the 012’s Asbestos Lead Asbestos was yet another tough match-up, but in the end it was a case of the familiar brilliance of Asbestos against the new-to-me brilliance of The Passions, who I only previously knew from the film star song, and – in this case at least – the ‘new’ won out.
Onto round four!
Only on the Afterword are 23 Skidoo “big hitters”
I’m so chuffed that Brewster has been able to do this, I knew him in Grimsby in the 80s and the “the ‘Skids” were his pet band even then.
That’s amazing. I think Bill Brewster must be responsible for at least 64% of the sleevenotes I read, with Tim Lawrence the author of the rest.
Dude’s a polymath, with the bizarrest sense of humour you could imagine. If you were anywhere near a warehouse party back in the days before he was a “deckhand” himself and heard somebody screeching “More tea vicaRRRRR?….. Some muffins perhaps??” , then it was the Billster.
Round Four Round-Up
Tones on Tail come up against Medium Medium and you couldn’t get a credit card between them. MM win by the slimmest of margins and for reasons I couldn’t articulate, other than their remit fits more with the ‘militant funk and post-punk dancefloor’ brief of the boxset cover, whereas Tones on Tail could well be an offcut – a very good offcut – from Burning From the Inside. Even so, memo to self: must investigate Tones on Tail.
Elsewhere, Simple Minds is an easy victory over Quando Quango, good as the latter is, while 23 Skidoo finally drop out at the hands of Visage. Lastly, Wide Boy Awake continue their hot streak by knocking out the mighty Passions.
Onto the semis!
Semi-final
Medium Medium come up against Simple Minds and this could have bene the final. With nothing to separate the two it goes to penalties and for a while I was going to put Medium through simply because the song is so much newer to me. There’s no getting away from the fact that the Simple Minds is an absolute banger, though, and ultimately any other result would have been a travesty. Simple Minds go through to the final.
In the other game, Wide Boy Awake meet Visage, where the muscularity of Visage, its close-cousin-of -John-Foxx’s-Underpass vibe and sheer metallic funkiness guarantee it a place in the final.
Final
Simple Minds meet Visage, and boring though it may be, the Minds prevail.
Tournament ends
https://challonge.com/2ul8cykx