Tunnelrunners

The Tunnelrunners
Plastic Land (Sonic International, 1981)

Main-man Madoc had been one of the 20 or so punters when the Pistols had played at Circles nitespot in Swansea in '76, but was never a real feature of the local scene, and only every now and again would he be spotted, with his long shaggy non-punk locks and mostly sporting some kind of brightly coloured miltary tunic, fronting The Tunnelrunners in some God-forsaken you-take-your-life-in-your-hands gig like the Admiral Benbow pub out on Fabian Way. You couldn't just go and see The Tunnelrunners: you had to be lucky, to be in the right place at the right time.

With the legend of the Tunnelrunners' glories grown to almost mythic proportions, the group was eventually nailed down in one place long enough to record a ten-song everything-live session for the local radio station (with Andrew Reader, of Swansea's fabulous powerpoppers The DC10s as 'producer'/cheerleader), and in January 1981 five tracks from the session were released as the "Plastic Land" EP. The group played one final Swansea gig, to show willing, and then disappeared back to the up-England-way college-lives that had effectively finished the group that past autumn.

(A year or so later, with the group uncontactable, the rest of the radio session was transformed into the "100 MPH" EP, though not a single copy of this has surfaced in over 20 years ... only 100 pressed, perhaps 15 sold, the rest trashed by mistake in the 80s.... so not surprising. All together: oops!).

Madoc's guitar-solos (here on "Plastic Land", and on "Forever Crying At Love Songs", another track on this EP) were heaven-sent. The tunes were top. They had fun. Has there ever been a more joyous pop group?

Clifford Evans Band

The Clifford Evans Band

Hands up who remembers the single "Your Face, A Fucking Disgrace" by The Porno Cassettes turning up on eBay a couple of years ago. Supposedly a UK record from 1982, according to the short MP3 snippet provided by the seller it was a super-shouty oi-type number along the lines of "British Justice" by The Ovaltinees. Not at all bad: I'll have one of those, please. Thing is, that one copy on eBay (who did it apparently sell to? anyone know?) is the only time it's ever shown up, and surely everything points to it having been a wind-up. Pretty good wind-up, fair play, but a red-herring for people like me who go actively trying to track the bugger. Like I don't waste enough fucking time already. If you know anything about the Porno Cassettes mystery, contact me.

Well a couple of eBay years before that was this, the Clifford Evans Band: this is the MP3 that accompanied the auction of a (white-labels only? acetate?) 1978 (?) UK private-pressing LP. At least this time, unlike with the Pornos, the auction was illustrated with (blurry) snaps to provide (vague) photographic evidence that the item actually existed. (I blame all my current eye-problems on the many hours spent squizzing the super-small pics in a desperate effort to make out any text that would've allowed me to have something to go on in sleuthing the band.) Hyper-annoyingly (I use hyper- in everyday speech these days as a secret Freemasons-like handshake to connect with other punk collectors), since then my proper computer has died the death, taking with it those blurry snaps so I don't have a picture to go with this post, but if anyone - anyone - knows anything - anything -about the Clifford Evans Band...

Jetz

The Jetz
"Catch Me" (Crystal, 1977)

(Look, I'd like to update this blog thing, like, every couple of hours, or at least every day (or two) cos there are certainly plenty of LDK-records which are still unheard by many people but, well, life, you know? So it's just whenever.)

So here's the Jetz record. Somehow this nigh-on perfect slice of rampant punky-powerpop, though crafted by a London band punted by a London-based management/production company, managed to be released not in the UK, but in Belgium, Holland, Germany and Swednormark (each edition uses the same picture, but the sleeves are different; there might or might not be a sleeve for the Scando issue: band says there was, but no-one's come up with one yet...).

One of the band had been in Starship, who'd released a private EP earlier in the year, but they all basically came from the legit side of the biz, and once The Jetz had split - this was their only single - and a couple of them had done The Pencils (a few singles) for a bit it was no surprise that they wandered back in that general direction and are these days giving it the old yeah-yeah-yeah on the Beatles-type 'tribute' circuit.

LDK sleuthed the band a couple of years ago after a first heart-attack-inducing chance encounter with the single in a Dutch record shop (note to self: never allow record shop owners to play mystery good-looking singles in the shop before you've actually handed over the money if you want to avoid a 'withdrawn-from-sale' fisticuff) and since then it's become a must-have from Torquay to Tokyo. But keep your eyes open and it's still possible to find a not-clued-up Belgian/Dutch/German/Scando record dealer: a copy on eBay last week was swiftly Buy-It-Now'd by an alert Spaniard for a couple of quid.

(Before you ask: B-side's good, but all the super-action is here, on the A-side.)