Monday, July 16, 2007

Rescued From The Bargain Bins Of History: 1

The Tribe: Here Comes The Sun (Pickwick, 1971)

Ten odd years ago I used to buy a lot of records, mainly from car boots sales, charity shops and the bargain bins of Record & Tape Exchange in Shepherds Bush. I had very, very little money to spare, so I never dropped more than about 50p a pop. That financial discipline meant I had to really put the hours in (time wasn't a problem then) to find stuff to sample and DJ with. Often, I just ended up with nothing, but sometimes I got an absolute killer. Whenever I got something good I'd take it round to Ronnie's house off Brook Green - Jonny Trunk worked in the antiques shop at the end of the road - and we'd try to do something with it. Then I'd leave it there and we'd go to the pub.

Well, yesterday it was Ronnie's birthday. He had a party at his house (a different house, some miles away). All these records of mine were upstairs. Stuff I'd not seen for, at least, ten years. I went straight up to his studio and pulled about 50 LPs off the smart black shelves and the cover of every one I found made me beam.

I remember getting this in a Scope shop on the Goldhawk Road, it cost about 20p. It's a cash-in to exploit George Harrison's Concert For Bangladesh fans. It's been done so quickly and cheaply that they're called The Tribes on the back cover. Stealing from charities is not the most altruistic idea ever, but these were simpler times. What this record taught me is:

1. Here Comes The Sun is a really good song.
2. It's clearly really hard to play. The guy (I love the way he sings, "Here come the sun...") trying to pull off this solo version only just manages to keep it together.

These two fare somewhat better...

2 comments:

Pat Carty said...

Great clip of Harrison and Paul "I both dress and comb my hair in the dark" Simon, cheers for that.

Pad said...

you must have seen a few of mine there too.