Strangely Perfect has put out his first recording since 1985 when his well documented withdrawal started.  Find it here.

As part of the work on the new (old) release of Crawling Chaos music, the art of Alistair Campbell has popped into Strangely’s head as an ideal candidate for the artwork. Strangely knew Alistair some time ago and commissioned a painting from him which hangs proudly above his bed. Unfortunately, contact was lost some time ago.

There will be previously unheard tracks, both live and studio. H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath” was an initial title musing. But not now. It will be original.

Please see this post for some Strangely of Crawling Chaos recollections regarding Doomage and the rest, early beginnings and later disintegration away from the main narrative that’s too big to fit on the myths page.

There are now three different Zombie Dance mixes which has to be some kind of a record. Strangely has cleaned them up but because of the state of the tapes the quality is getting worse and it’s harder to do. It’d be easier and quicker to hire a few drunk dudes and record everything from scratch. Apart from getting someone to play like Harry that is.

All the versions are found here, http://crawlingchaos.co.uk/music/. One runs straight into “Mary Whitehouse” which Strangely made up when he worked in a fibreglass factory in Welshpool (see Myths page, http://crawlingchaos.co.uk/myths. Not surprisingly it’s about the woman of that name who stood astride her festival of light pontificating about the moral decline of the nation - this being the same nation that from it’s economic policies had previously started two world wars, engineered the Suez crisis and ditched all responsibilities to the “citizens” it’d made across the globe when it decided they cost too much. These same economic policies exist today and are strangling those same peoples in Africa et al by limiting their markets, imposing import tariffs or preferential treatment to others and meanwhile, as is the case in Burkina Faso or Nigeria say, extracting all their mineral wealth and just leaving them with 5% of the dosh.

Fuck the nation state, fuck their rulers and fuck their patriotic self-serving greedy inhabitants. They’re all dancing like zombies into a world bereft of food, energy and freedom.

Strangely describes how the Crawling Chaos site was cracked by a dirty hacker and some of the measures taken. The original comment on the attacks is here.

Cerysmatic has pointed out someone else’s alternative viewpoint to the normal heroic rhetoric being bandied around about the sometime record mogul. This relates to the freedom of Manchester thing, e.g. here. Fair play to John Cooper for publishing the info on his site which, it must be said, normally throws a wholly positive light onto the whole Factory thing.

Code: FAC 17

Sex Machine

1 hr jamming, 30 mins lyrics brainstorm and 3 months gestation created the “Factory” favourite, pop-pickers. Basic drive created by Strangely during a jam one night using fuzzed LFO-controlled VCA‘d keyboards. After a few minutes Doomage had generated the killer guitar tune to go with it - a work of genius as it lends itself very well to multiple overdubs. The tune stayed like this for a little while when it was decided to add some words and do it properly. On the final released version, this involved a serious amount of guitar overdubbing and a few extra keyboard bleeps. Words added by Strangely, Doomage and Errol. Fatso thought of the first line “I’ve got a brand new pair of genes”. The lyrics “pinch” heavily from the “My Mum” song by Dudley Moore on the “Derek and Clive Come Again” record. They started off as a prediction based on scientific progress and the natural human proclivities towards sexual enhancement(s). Our initial idea was that amputees and the like could “grow” new limbs or organs to replace damaged ones in the same way that a cell, containing all the info needed for a person, changes into a foetus and then a human being. There must be something that stops human cells doing this as salamanders can grow new tails and the liver can regenerate when only a third is left. In the pub this soon degenerated into the words as they are and what would probably happen. The words are now becoming true as scientific fact, first as gene therapy and very soon now, as gene modifications and designer babies become commonplace, as a “natural” way to enhance the sex organs. After all, all men want bigger cocks and all women want bigger tits and smaller bums. It’s what we are..  However, it was a close run thing that the tune could’ve been based on Joan Crawford as we were quite fond of that track at the time as well.

Berlin

Live recording. I’m not sure if it’s an early one done at The Bridge, Newcastle or a later one there or somewhere else. I remember a tape getting accidentally erased so that some plans had to be revised and decent stuff had to be done again. I’m 100% sure that beer was involved…

It’s a very simple piece that demonstrates the kind of jamming that was done live within a basic structure that could go on for any amount of time. For live recordings, most of the studio equipment would go on stage with the tape decks being used in innovative ways, different to their normal studio usage.

One thing IS for sure though - Ian Curtis of Joyce Division would never have volunteered his services to sing with Crawling Chaos.  It was indeed Strangely Perfect wot done it, guv.

See main message at Strangely’s site: http://www.strangelyperfect.tv/?p=165

It means that the last time a post or page has been edited by anyone, it shows on the post/page, as well as the original creation time. It is useful to keep track of things and see if anything has been altered. From my (Strangely Perfect) viewpoint, I make changes to the original articles just as I make changes to recordings. That is, it’s quite hard to be really satisfied with anything as after time has passed, I can always think of new bits to add.

Other reasons might be to add or remove some defamatory or complimentary remark in light of changing circumstances.

Or even amend or add a fact, or a spelling mistake …

zzz

I’ve just read a very informative interview with Stuart at Popcorn Youth. Stuart contacted me about half a year back when I was correcting some fallacies in a Dissensus posting about Crawling Chaos. Since then, we have had a few emails across the water. I never realised how much stuff he’s been into and how many projects he’s instigated and been part of. And yes, he got fucked about by Factory as well.

The depth of his experimentation is impressive. It’s a shame we never got to meet in the Crawling Chaos/early NYC days. He’s due in Paris, London or Glasgow - but not all at once. He steadfastly refuses to contemplate Bridgwater as a venue which is sad as I make a lovely cup of tea. Also, I think given the right publicity and support that they’d go down a storm. Ah well…

I recently met Paul who’s demonstrated to me his gear and I also gave him some pointers and history for analogue stuff that he’s interested in. It set me thinking to when I first started making “sounds” as opposed to music and that I still haven’t properly recorded a tune I made up on a school cross-country run and that’s still in my head. See http://www.strangelyperfect.tv/?p=157. Delia Derbyshire could be said to have inspired several generations of synthesised music players and composers.