Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The Soup Dragons - The Sun Is in the Sky ep (1986, Subway Organization)

It was 1991 or thereabouts, and Scotland's Soup Dragons had brewed up a colossal hit with their acid-house reconfiguration of the Rolling Stones "I Feel Free"....and I could give a rats ass. In fact when they quietly disappeared a few years later (along with the rest of the Madchester scene), I'm sure I was subconciously delighted they were off the radar. That was until the mid-90s when I had read in more than a few places that early in their career, the Soup Dragons more or less aped The Buzzcocks.

Hmmm. Being the Buzzcocks fan I was/still am, I decided to do some investigating, within budget mind you. I found a tape of their full-length debut This Is Our Art. Hardly the stuff of Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle, but at least the breakbeats and wah-wah hadn't kicked in yet. I delved a little deeper and investigated their Hang Ten! release, a cobbled together collection of early ep tracks. I was getting a little warmer, but if anything the material on Hang Ten! (some claim this to be their strongest release, btw) was a loose afterthought of the just passed C86 indie pop phenom. It wasn't until the last couple years that I learned of the Soup Dragons pre-Hang Ten! ep, The Sun Is in the Sky. Bingo - or as close as I would come to what I had been pining for anyway. The slightly off-kilter tenor inhabiting "Swirling Round The Garden With You" and "Fair's Fair" did indeed pack some serious crunch, but not so much the firepower I had anticipated. At any rate The Sun... is a fun, respectable DIY record, and a motif that for better or worse, the Soup Dragons would quickly abandon.
 
01. Quite Content
02. Swirling Round The Garden With You
03. Fair's Fair
04. Not For Humbert
 

5 comments:

jeffen said...

Different take on the Soup Dragons

I first heard "This is Our Art" (when it came out) - Dull, Dull, Dull. Then I rented the Hang Ten(yes rent-a-record was once a reality )and loved it (at least the first 3/4). A few years later the record store where I worked and had to play very bad music got a play cassingle of "I'm Free". I welcomed it as a passably enjoyable bit of Madchester bandwagoning.

45 Revolutions said...

I sent for this, mail order only, but it never came. (Well, not me personally, to be fair...)

corbypunk said...

MMMMMMMMMMM...... me thinks 45 revolutions is a pooh sticks fan!

corbypunk said...

Just occurred to me, this didnt get released by subway as they went bust before it was due to come out, was released mail order only & they ripped a load of people off! The best thing they did was the first single, "whole wide world". E-mail me @ markiered@msn.com & i`ll email u the tracks if u ain`t got them

TheRobster said...

Holy moly! Been looking for this for YEARS! Now I've found it, it's on Rapidshare, which never lets me download a thing! Any chance you can up this to somewhere else?