Release Type: compilation
Released: 1997
Label: creation_records
Catalogue: NR2002

1. She's A Yo-Yo
2. Mr. Odd
3. She's On Drugs
4. Bicycle Kid
5. Get It Wrong
6. Chickentown
7. Sister Death
8. Girls Say Yes
9. Our Friends The Filth
10. Sweetwater
11. Whaddya?
12. Ghosts
13. Pineapple Tuesday
14. Shirley Maclaine
15. Girl-Go

Paul Mulreany - Drums, percussion, guitar, voice
Laurence O'Keefe - Bass guitar, voice
Alex Green - Tenor and alto saxophone
Kizzy O'Callaghan - Guitars, Voice on Bicycle Kid , Get It Wrong , Chickentown
Richard Formby - Guitars on She's A Yo-Yo , Mr. Odd , Ghosts , Shirley Maclaine , Girl-Go
Alex Lee - Guitars on She's A Yo-Yo , She's On Drugs , Sister Death , Girls Say Yes , Our Friends The Filth , Shirley Maclaine
Owen Jones - Organ, percussion, voice on She's A Yo-Yo , Sister Death , Girls Say Yes , Shirley Maclaine
Peter Crouch - Guitars on Girls Say Yes , Our Friends The Filth , Sweetwater , Whaddya? , Ghosts
Dooj Wilkinson - Bass guitar, voice on Sweetwater , Whaddya? , Ghosts
Nick Burson - Drums on Sweetwater , Whaddya? , Ghosts
Pat Fish - Guitars, keyboards, percussion, voice
Joe Foster - Bass guitar on She's A Yo-Yo , Girls Say Yes , Our Friends The Filth , Shirley Maclaine
Dave Morgan - drums on Get It Wrong , Chickentown
Greenwood Goulding - Bass guitar on Get It Wrong , Chickentown
Tim Burrell - Piano on Girls Say Yes
Sumishta Brahm - Voice on Girls Say Yes , Our Friends The Filth
Iain O'Higgins - producer on Get It Wrong , Chickentown
John A. Rivers - producer on Bicycle Kid
Martin Stebbing (Rev. Botus Whiteblood Fleming) - producer on Mr. Odd , She's On Drugs , Sister Death , Pineapple Tuesday , Girl-Go
Pat Fish - producer on She's A Yo-Yo , Girls Say Yes , Our Friends The Filth , Shirley Maclaine
Richard Formby - producer on Sweetwater , Whaddya? , Ghosts

Millions of years ago, dinosaurs ruled the Earth. Today the Galileo Space Probe orbits mighty planet Jupiter. The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy first appeared in June 1982 in the back room of the Black Lion in Northampton. They finally drank the bar dry in a small town in Mallorca on the 20th August 1996. On the achievement of this ambition, the most deconstruction-resistant beat group of our times finally has the grace to call it a day. What they leave on this disc is a collection of some of the more popular tunes from their long and chaotic association with the Creation Records label.

1. She's A Yo-Yo

The first take of the "Condition Blue" sessions: four desperate men in a haunted room. Alex Lee 's fuel-air blasts and some two-wheeled cornering from Mister Paul Mulreany drive this heads-down squalid tale of bad people doing bad things.

2. Mr. Odd

Written at Basement Fish, the JBC's secret central London base, about the man next door. Neither Mister Odd nor Harry, the proprietor of the basement are with us now. God rest their souls.

3. She's On Drugs

Inspired by a photo in a sixties college yearbook and written in a Texas motel room, this owes a large musical debt to L.A. band Downey Mildew, which the Butcher somehow thought he could make up by shouting, "Hey, Charlie" over the guitar solo.

4. Bicycle Kid

One will appreciate that a few years have passed since this was written. He is Bicycle Bloke now. One day he will hear this tune and the Butcher will be toast: " Bicycle Kid - the jumped up B-side that ruined my life."

5. Get It Wrong

In 1987, Alex Green and the Bucher toured France for a month in a small car with a crazed and almost totally blind Parisian punk rocker and a tour manager called Captain Dogboy. It is an indication of their state of mind that they actually considered using this title. Five minutes of squelching noises, basically.

6. Chickentown

Blind drunk and totally broke, the JBC bite the hand that feeds them. Careering unsteadily towards thirty, with the Thatcher thing beginning to bite, the Butcher goes into one, and a sinister man called Iain O'Higgins commit the resultant din to tape.

7. Sister Death

One week into the Nineties and the JBC hit a creative peak in a Norfolk farmhouse. Just back from a mad American tour, shocked at the seriousness of Kizzy O'Callaghan 's illness, their personal lives in chaos, they go for commercial suicide and accidentally make their best album in years. Spooky.

8. Girls Say Yes

A lunge at the Serge-coloured pervy corner, this may or may not be inspired by an anti-Vietnam War poster. Features one of the Bucther's more graceful lyrics and the first recorded contribution of dangerously moody guitarist and owner-of-all-the-beer, Peter Crouch .

9. Our Friends The Filth

Czech underground techno band The Black Eg caused something of a fuss when they accused the Butcher of stealing this tune from them, even going so far as to call the JBC and Creation Records "pig" on the radio. The tousands of AC/DC fans sampled here have also lodged expensive royalty claims, which means thet the Butcher will have to work until he is over a hundred years old just to pay them all off.

10. Sweetwater

Two snapshots from the US tour of 1992, specifically a splendid night at the Sweetwater Springs Saloon, Los Osos, Ca. involving a giant refrigerator full of Jaegermeister, and a twenty-four hour binge in New Orleans. More romantic than it probably sounds.

11. Whaddya?

The bleached-out sound of a post-hysteric Butcher with real submarine noises from Rosemary Davis' World Of Sound resonating in the Richard Formby Flotation Tank. Try to imagine the Sound Of Philadelphia filtered through a schizophrenically diassociative hangover on a freezing morning thousands of miles from home.

12. Ghosts

So you're mad. So you're gonna kill me. So how long do you think I'll care?

13. Pineapple Tuesday

December 1989: high in the hills of Southern California a dazed JBC tucks into speciality ice-creams in a cowboy bar. It is Tuesday. Like elephants, the JBC do not forget. They agree that this would make a fine soundtrack for a film of their bus driving down a long, straight desert road somewhere in Spain.

14. Shirley Maclaine

We're right in the middle of the 1991 firestorm here. Alex Lee (Gibson 335) and Richard Formby (sixties science-fiction Vox affair) do battle in a darkened room full of toxic fumes. Lix is standing on a chair. The rest of the JBC are doing their nuts on the sofa. This is all that is keeping them going.

15. Girl-Go

There is a place outside of space and time, visited by the illuminated and the terminally schizophrenic alike. Here, where all is spread out below, there is a sound at once soothing and disturbing. It is the sound of the inner circles of Richard Formby 's mind, and is it captured for you on the closing minute of this, the JBC's own spooked misappropriation of the Petula Clarke classic, "Downtown".

;;Pat Fish;;;;1996-11

Patrick Smith Reviews (USA), May 1997