Oh, look, it’s Friday the thirteenth. Luckily for me, I’ve posted something surreal and weird to mark the occasion.
Back in the mid-1980s, when I was buying anything I could find on the Crass label, I came across this record in Rough Trade. I’d heard of the Cravats and the various other bands that the Shend was involved with, but I hadn’t heard their music before. This was what I heard. It’s actually fairly restrained in comparison to their other recordings, and nothing like as crazy as their live sound.
The Cravats were formed in Redditch in the late 1970s, and had put out a few records before this one saw the light of day. You’ll be hearing more from the Shend and friends later on, but for now, I’ll just say this: the Shend appears in an episode of Torchwood (‘They Keep Killing Suzie’), during which his character, the Retcon-crazed serial killer Max Tresillian, is described as being ‘in his early forties’. Yeah, right!
100 Songs in 100 Days 