Friday, April 22, 2005

Song Of the Day: April 22, 2005


The Train Spotters-Hiring the Hall

Arista Records 45, 1979


Stories of major label dashed dreams are pretty common in the UK signing frenzy that erupted after the punk explosion of '77. These future retail clerks were permitted two singles on Arista, but denied the shot at making the full length. Their first single, "High Rise" is typical, but quite good punk pop of the period, and would nestle in comfortably in a pile of singles by the Boys, Undertones, etc. They followed that with "Unfaithful," which was never officially released, and thus ended the very brief saga of the Trainspotters, or Train Spotters, depending on which of the two 45s you look at. This is the B-side of the latter.

Here's the real story on the Trainspotters from Steve Mitchell at Low Down Kids, which makes a lot more sense of the enterprise: "Trainspotters: this was Mike Read, the radio DJ. He'd been on Radio Luxembourg (actually based in Luxembourg - some kind of licensing loophole)
and had been in bands since the 60s, making records under all sorts of names. Immediately prior to the Trainspotters he'd released the "Are You Ready" 7" under his own name - not a great record, but on the pic sleeve he's standing outside the door of the Roxy club! By the end of the decade he moved to BBC's Radio 1, where he used to play guitar on his radio show and
it was at this point he did the Trainspotters singles. He even did a version of the "High Rise" number as a jingle: "Mike Read! Mike Read! 2-7-5 and 2-8-5!". After those two singles he released "My Town" under the name of The Ghosts, which is another good powerpopper. He's continued to make records ever since. Much of his Trainspotters/Ghosts-period gear has recently been comp'd on CD in Japan."


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