Vote Kinks!

Never given the kudos of The Beatles or indeed The Who in terms of knocking off a coherent concept piece, ‘The Village Green…’ is every bit the biting drama that BBC bosses crave...

Vote Kinks!

As if anyone needed any encouragement to put their tongues in their collective cheeks when asked about the upcoming general election. Or if we needed to moan any more by the BBC’s lack of new local drama! Both issues are drawn into perfect contrast by one of the greatest albums by a British band ever, The Kinks’ ‘The Village Green Preservation Society’.

It scoffs at HD new technology and is available on Lost Tunes in both stereo and glorious mono. Yes, mono! Never given the kudos of The Beatles or indeed The Who in terms of knocking off a coherent concept piece, ‘The Village Green…’ is every bit the biting drama that BBC bosses crave, fought out in middle England where this year’s election will surely become a ham-fisted bloodbath.

Beyond all that, it’s just a great album. Sure, ‘Sgt Pepper’ sold millions and ‘Tommy’ had lots of poignant imagery but Ray Davies’ desire to embrace the good bits of what was ‘60s Britain as it headed off to new towns with unimaginative names, is remarkable. It’s small time England but gloriously depicted. It almost smells of cream teas as the romantic drama as the tragedy unfolds.

Nostalgia, it is what it used to be. It even has whistling.

Exclusive Gems From The Archive Available Now!

It’s treats aplenty on Lost Tunes with over 30 albums added this week that are all exclusive to Lost Tunes. Between them they bring together all styles of music from progressive space rock to earthy English folk music that’s a firm favourite of Fleet Foxes. There’s also some psychedelic experimentalists, a long lost early album from Band Of Gold hit maker Freda Payne and some of the last ever recordings by the Small Faces as back up to Johnny Hallyday!

Exclusive Gems From The Archive Available Now!

Duncan Browne’s Give Me Take You is acclaimed on The Fleet Foxes’ myspace as one of the few inspirations on the band. It’s a truly remarkable album as is the only release from Trader Horne that teamed up former Them member Jackie McAuley and Judy Dyble who’d previously been in Fairport Convention. Their harmonies are exquisite.

In this new batch there’s also some tormented acid folk from Jimmy Campbell, three albums that are all worth checking out, as are the quirky psyche sounds of Paul Brett’s Sage whose three albums are buried treasures in the truest sense of the word.

Freda Payne’s How Do You Say I Don’t Love You Anymore is one of those lamented albums that disappeared into the ether in the mid ‘60s. By the time she hit big with Band Of Gold it was a priceless set and its soulful groove underlines her vast talent and evocative vocal.

Golden Earrings, from Holland, also hit big in the ‘70s with the brash and screeching classic Radar Love but it’s their first three albums that have been unearthed here. Starting with Nederbeat, their version of The Beatles beat boom, they soon accepted the psychedelic chalice and wigged out accordingly, as did Spooky Tooth who decided to follow their biggest hit with Better By You Better Than Me by drafting in French experimental sound manipulator Pierre Henry. Discover what happened…

We also have four classic albums from prog’s under rated classically-tinged Fruup, the similarly overlooked Galliard and CMU – the Contemporary Music Unit to you – not to mention a couple of stellar Cozy Powell albums where the drummer dances with Gary Moore and Jeff Beck, and let’s not forget the first two Man albums in all their psychedelic prog glory. So, don’t worry that the English Summer has been reduced to four seasons in one day… every day, you can just sit at home and languish in these luxurious treasures.

Stephen Duffy & The Lilac Time - Kiss Me Again

We at Lost Tunes are proud to host a brand new version of Stephen Duffy's Kiss Me With Your Mouth. It precedes some great Lilac Time reissues we will have for you very soon

Stephen Duffy & The Lilac Time - Kiss Me Again

We at Lost Tunes are proud to host a brand new version of Stephen Duffy's Kiss Me With Your Mouth. It precedes some great Lilac Time reissues we will have for you very soon.
Stephen Duffy is a prolific and much feted British songwriter whose music career began 30 years ago.
Having begun his career in the embryonic Duran Duran with Nick Rhodes and John Taylor, Stephen left the band in 1979 – a year before the new romantics signed to EMI. But Stephen wasn’t without a major label deal for long. After releasing a single as The Hawks (aka Obviously Five Believers) he teamed up with members of Fashion and Dexys Midnight Runners to form Tin Tin and signed to WEA. The original dance version of Kiss Me was released and it was huge. As Stephen recalls “I found the success of the US remix of Kiss Me inspired genuine teenage pandemonium on the streets of Bloxwich and Sutton Coldfield. Girls pretended to faint. I was called out to provincial high street discotheques all over the country. Somewhere in the Black Country I shared a dressing room with the wet t shirt competition that was on after me."
A couple of years later, Stephen, now known as Stephen ‘Tin Tin’ Duffy, was a solo artist and signed to Virgin 10 Records. The re-recorded version of Kiss Me was released and sold 250,000 units in three weeks, peaked at Number 4 in the UK Charts and became one of the defining songs of the era. It was the last song played on the medium wave service of Radio 1 before it became an FM-only station on 1 July 1994.
Having decided the Pop-Star-Life-Style wasn’t really for him, Stephen formed The Lilac Time, inspired by Nick Drake with the name taken from Drake‘s River Man. Signed to Fontana the released three albums to great critical acclaim – the eponymous debut, Paradise Circus and & Love For All. However they were dropped but snapped up by Alan McGee and his Creation label who put out the Astronauts album in 1990. This marked a hiatus for The Lilac Time as Stephen went solo again.
Another major label deal with Parlophone saw him team up with fellow Aston Villa fan, Nigel Kennedy and released the remarkable Music In Colours album. The project was born out of attending matches at Villa Park, Stephen’s first experience of playing with an orchestra in Australia and being neighbours in The Malverns. Stephen recalls the recording of the album as “the best and most magical experience I've ever had in a studio".
With Brit Pop about to take over the world, Stephen moved to America, but returned with the ‘Duffy’ album released via the Indolent imprint, home to some of the scene’s biggest bands such as Sleeper. This led onto the Brit Pop supergroup, MeMeMe - a one-off colleborative project with Alex James (Blur), Justin Welch (Elastica) and Charlie Bloor, a friend of Alex James. Originally the tracks were recorded as background tracks for Damien Hirst's film art installation at the Spellbound Exhibition, which took place at London's Hayward Gallery in March 1996.
After ‘Contractual Issues’ and the collapse of Indolent, the follow up album to Duffy – I Love My Friends – was belatedly released by Cooking Vinyl in 1998 before Stephen reformed The Lilac Time and released two albums Looking For A Day In The Night and Lilac6. The band then became Stephen Duffy and The Lilac Time and released two more albums – Keep Going and Runout Groove.
So there we have the potted history of one Stephen Anthony James Duffy’s 30 years in the wilderness. And all without even mentioning that he co-wrote and co-produced Robbie Williams’ Intensive Care album and toured the world as musical director on Robbie’s Close Encounters World Tour.