The Sanctions, James Lowe and The Lords, and Mooz

JUNE 2000

Plenty of things going on here at Heartbeat Towers over the next few months:

Finally completed production of early garage tracks from the two pre ELECTRIC PRUNES bands:

THE SANCTIONS

and JAMES LOWE & THE LORDS. The recordings were thrashed out back in 1965 onto a direct-to-disc machine that resided in the corner of a garage, down California way.........six tracks were cut to two twelve inch acetates - what price these at auction??

THE SANCTIONS crashed their way through twelve garage standards....Jack The Ripper, Louie Louie....you name 'em & they're there - sound quality is shit!, but if you were suffed under a pile of boxes full of undocumented contents for 35 years, how would you fair??. Seriously though, it aint no hi-fi dreamscape - this is raw, lo-fi & minimal, and only just there! hence why it has taken over a year to clean up! and even after that some of the noise is STILL there - BUT! as a chunk of history, it's essential.

JAMES LOWE & THE LORDS really was nothing more than a name change for the previous line up of James Lowe, Ken Williams, Mark Tulin & Mike Wheatley - though there was a Dick Hargrave who quickly passed through on keybords (see photo on sleeve) - little is known about him, and he didn't re-appear on any future recordings.

The band laid down four songs to two seven inch acetates, again via direct-to-disc. While the standard of musicianship had greatly improved, the quality of sound reproduction once again has sadly suffered with age - these poor discs were in a really sorry state - all this aside though, it's great to hear them doing an early version of Little Olive (Electric Prunes first US 45) - here titled L'il Olive.

Included with this album will be a selection of some wonderful old photographs - of both bands, most of which have survived the 35 years extremely well. These will be featured on both the outer and inner sleeves.
Release date for "THEN CAME THE ELECTRIC PRUNES" is set for late June 2000 in both LP & CD formats - HB63/CDHB63

After a dormant period, label TRASH CITY RECORDS sees life once again with two full on
punk 7" singles, also released late June 2000. Bristol bands,

KENISIA

and
THE MERICS

both impressed these ears to such an extent that despite it's demise, what other format could such a ball-breaking racket be unleashed - other than good old 45. Both outfits have recently featured strongly in the on-line Peoplesound listings, and are building a good following around the UK. We'll be looking for our 4th & 5th consecutive "single of the week" from KERRANG of course..............guys, the cheque's in the post.

Hot on the heels of these releases will be an EP from Bristols' MOOZ.

Four highly respected wild fem, boasting juicy rhythms but with an ear for the avant garde, and beautifully tinged by the vocals of a bird….interested? - you should be! these girls have been causing a stir for the past year with a series of wicked live performances - and with a demo CD aided and abetted by the Roni Size team, the band have raised many eyebrows.

MOOZ have already been locked away in Bristol's Channel House Studios, piecing together their unique sounds - for what will surely come as a surprise departure from the more recognised & expected musical output from Heartbeat. Think back to the GLAXO BABIES, add slices of Jazz, a bit of Drum & Bass, then some PJ Harvey & you're kinda gettin there!

The time is right to unleash MOOZ music to the world - expect the 4track EP in July with an album to follow in the autumn.

Work has also started on the HEARBEAT - A HISTORY album - a collection of highlights from the early years - 1978 to 1980, which will include all the singles plus a few gems that "got away" and hopefully selected album tracks. This will inevitably lead to further re-releases on CD from GLAXO BABIES and maybe even our highly regarded compilation album AVON CALLING, which set the scene for many other towns & cities to follow suit….who knows. Searching out the master tapes has proved challenging, and they all seem to be in reasonable condition. Having listened to all this music again after so many years, it really does stand out - superb stuff - maybe I'm biased - judge for yourselves! you won't be disappointed.

Well, that's it for now, I'm looking forward to all this happening!

More NEWS next month.

Simon Edwards 25:05:2000