Close Lobsters - The Janice Long Session ep (1988, BBC/Strange Fruit; rec 1/29/86)

Back in the day at the good 'ol BBC Radio One, I take it there was only so much John Peel to go around. While the vast majority of musical guests taped for exclusive BBC radio sessions were brought in under the wing of the sadly departed Mr. Peel, a handful of performances by acts such as The Mighty Lemon Drops, Danielle Dax, and Scotland's Close Lobsters were handled by one Janice Long. According to her Wikipedia entry, she was fired from "the Beeb" in 1987 for being pregnant and unwed (no joke). She was brought back to the fold in 1999, this time via BBC's Radio 2 outlet.

The Lobsters have been namedropped on these pages numerous times, and had an album (Headache Rhetoric) featured here in August of 2007. To me they were the pinnacle of the British C86 indie rock movement - card-carrying jangle meisters, and proud of it. This session contains a crucial non-lp stunner, "I'm Going to Heaven to See if it Rains." The version here bests it's original single incarnation, and that's no small feat. They may not have realized it at the time, but the Close Lobsters had something pretty colossal to offer. Too bad so few people were listening.

01. Nothing Really Matters

02. Going to Heaven to See if it Rains

03. Pathetic Trivia

04. Never Seen Before
 

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