The Judge RAVES!
Date: 22/08/10
Cake Time!
I think I'm in love...
(Baked by Mictoboy, and posted to the B3ta board (Warning! Some content there NSFW!) just to make us all feel jealous).
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Fay Ray - "Different Morning"
Back in 1978/79, when I was in sixth form, we had a record player (as they were then called, my children) in the corner of the Common Room. This was little more than a square wooden box with a Garrard turntable and a crappy speaker bunged in it (we often connected it up to a guitar amp to give it a bit more oomph).
There was a clique of us who monopolised that corner and who used the machine to play what suited us. This varied from heavy metal (usually courtesy of Andy Beresford - AC/DC for preference) and Led Zeppelin and The Faces (Pol Wong's special interest), via space rock (lots of Hawkwind, with Alan Howells to the fore in this area) to prog (Gabriel-era Genesis). There were other, less frequent, excursions into new wave and what would come much later to be called 'indie'.
It was the dawn of the independent labels, proliferating in the space afforded by the explosion of musical activity following punk. DinDisc (OMD), Mute (Silicon Teens), Bludgeon Riffola (Def Leppard); they all made their appearances in our corner.
It was there I first heard a record on another label I'd never heard of. The label was Duff, the band was called Hot Water, and the single (strictly speaking, the B-side) was called Different Morning. It was one of the better tracks I'd heard from that whole era, and although I didn't get a copy myself due to a shortage of funds and a lack of opportunity, I never completely forgot it. I find now that someone is trying to sell a copy on eBay for £40, when the book price for it is probably around a quarter of that. Good luck, fella.
Hot Water didn't last all that long, and most of the band morphed into a group called Fay Ray. They released one well-regarded album before their record company dumped them, but included on that LP was a cover of Different Morning. What follows is a clip of Fay Ray's version, presumably recorded for promotional release. It seems to have the energy I remember from the Hot Water version, though.
Some thoughts on this clip: firstly the antics of the lead guitarist. John Lovering (who wrote this track) was at that time a lecturer in economics at University College Bangor. He's now Professor of Urban Development and Governance at Cardiff University. Someone commenting on the YouTube clip below said that he was trying to be like Robert Fripp, but I see a strong resemblance to the engineer and author Tim Hunkin. Secondly, there is a very visible saxophonist on this clip. Goodness knows why, because - blowing up a storm as he obviously is at times - he is completely inaudible (although sax featured strongly on the original Hot Water recording, as I recall it).
Anyway, enjoy:
Update: Through devious means, I've managed to get to hear Fay Ray's 1982 album Contact You. It's a good one, which makes it all the sadder that it has never been officially reissued on CD. Perhaps also the cokehead wankers of Warners could be persuaded to loosen their grip on the band's second LP, which has lain unreleased in their vaults these last twenty-seven years.
