B/W Still In The Kitchen

B/W Southern Mark Smith

We were deeply confused young men when we made this record. Max, Jones and I had all been drinking dangerously for over a year now. Generally, we had it down in concert. In just about every other department, however, we were coming to bits, individually and collectively, and to me this record actually shows the morbid state of things at the time.

Glass Records era compilation.

We were all disappointed at the way this came out. The concert was great, but logistics prevented us from making anything much more than a glorified bootleg. Still, live albums are best as souvenirs anyway, so I guess some people regard it fondly. Lots of entertaining photos to look at anyway...

This record is all about love. Don't let the psychic molestation syndrome get to you. This is our loudest record to date, which is something to do with the elephants.

The title comes from a rather noir little TV series from the early Sixties wherein the great Herbert Lom played the extremely sexy and not entirely unbrilliant Dr. Alexander Kordu, a psychiatrist with the handy ability to sort out even the most appalling cases within sixty minutes.

Acoustically and lively delivered cover tunes. Essential.

The Jazz Butcher and his group are not in the business of belonging; they are too old and too obstreperous to conform to some attention-seeking image or commercially viable formula. Rather, they bring their not inconsiderable talents to bear on whatever happens to be in the way at the time. The results can only be described as essential.

Having exhausted the initial stick of JB songs, I was obliged for the first time to write about my life as it was at the time. I think that now we had started to learn about actually creating recordings rather than just recording the sound of a bunch of pals fooling around. This one I'd actually defend at length if I had to.

One of the better Creation-era compilations. Canadian release.