 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Barry Lamb (born 9 May 1963 in South Shields, England) is an English experimental musician.
| This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Barry Lamb (born 9 May 1963 in South Shields, England) is an English experimental musician.
Barry Lamb is an English composer, author and musician. He was born in South Shields, but lived in Holland-on-Sea during his secondary school years. He attended Clacton County High School where he first met his long time musical collaborator Peter Ashby. It was during his high school years that he formed Frenzid Melon with Ashby and they began experimenting with music inspired by the immediacy and DIY ethic of punk. Lamb also began making his own experimental music using simple tape manipulation techniques and they began to release their music on cassette. This marked the beginning of what has become known as cassette culture. During this period Ashby & Lamb founded Falling A Records, [1] [2] as one of the early cassette labels and later an independent record label.
Falling A also opened a shop in Clacton-on-Sea and acted as a distribution service for other cassette culture artists, labels and fanzines. Lamb's solo career coexisted with his collaborations with Ashby. Most of his solo albums are avant-garde / electronic / industrial in nature. The album Dusk is perhaps his best-known solo work. During his most prolific period, Lamb had regular correspondence with fellow contemporaries Bryn Jones of Muslimgauze, members of Attrition, and the Third Mind record label.[ citation needed ]
Sometime during the course of 1981–82 Frenzid Melon disbanded but Ashby and Lamb quickly re emerged having added Owen Turley to the line up and morphing into a new band the insane picnic.[ citation needed ] Whilst Frenzid Melon had been heavily influenced by punk, the insane picnic had more of a post punk feel to them. Their debut release in the autumn of 1982 was the critically acclaimed "Four Days in April" EP. This received a glowing review by Ian Pye in Melody Maker "A twisted cross between Echo and the Bunnymen & the Fall. The Insane Picnic succeed where most others fail by creating an atmosphere that may not be unique but is at least threateningly distanced from the obvious possibilities.." [3] The insane picnic were unable to capitalise on momentum due to internal struggles and the inability to engage a permanent drummer for regular live performances. A planned album in 1984 did not advance beyond the demo stage. The demo tapes were eventually released on CD in 2004 under the name "this is the winter darkness". [4] The insane picnic continued in a stop start fashion until 1989 with occasional releases and live performances. Their biggest success during this period was the "Magistrates & Saints" 12" EP. [5] The closure of the Falling A shop in 1985 sparked the relocation of the headquarters to Reading. [6]
In 1989 following the demise of the insane picnic, Lamb moved to Braintree, Essex and recorded a progressive rock album with Ashby under the name of Ermin Grud. The resulting album "the narrow path" was released as a private pressing in a deliberately obscure manner with no clues as to the source of the recording or musicians involved. There are fewer than 100 copies in existence. The album is saturated with the sound of the mellotron and Hammond organ in an attempt to pass it off as an authentic early 1970s private pressing.[ citation needed ]
In the late 1990s his output was minimal, and apart from an appearance on the WMTID album Pale Saint he seemed along with many of his cassette culture contemporaries to have disappeared without a trace. Midway through 2005 though, he re-emerged with an appearance on the Jasun Martz (former member of Frank Zappa's band) album The Pillory / The Battle playing mellotron and wind synth as well as releasing a brand new album entitled It's All About Purpose on the Six Armed Man label. 2006 saw another flurry of activity with several contributions to various Six Armed Man releases and another album of new material entitled Observations of Istanbul. [7]
In 2007 he released an album of new material called ...this is [8] which has received critical acclaim in the underground music network. Lamb's continued partnership with former insane picnic and Frenzid Melon member Peter Ashby continues to bear fruit as they work together. Other collaborations include Lamb playing saxophone on Peter Ashby's Disturbances in the ether album, working with up and coming urban hip hop artist Tor Cesay, collaborating with Keith Levene, [9] being covered by Swiss chanteuse Hilda Garman and recording with Wavis O'Shave.
Following another hiatus in 2016, the Ashby & Lamb partnership reconvened under the name of The Two Headed Emperor. [10] This resulted in another flurry of new releases and activity. [11]
In 2020, he headed up a team that curated and delivered the 40th anniversary release of Morgan Fisher's influential Miniatures series. The subsequent album contained tracks from many well known artists including some from the original 1980 album and its millennial sequel as well as a selection of lesser known musicians. Wire Magazine reviewed it as "musically tight and conceptually svelte, like a sonic haiku. Limiting tracks to one minute leads to an economy and urgency that is completely engaging". [12]
The cassette culture refers to the practices associated with amateur production and distribution of music and sound art on compact cassette that emerged in the mid-1970s. The cassette was used by fine artists and poets for the independent distribution of new work. This article focuses on the independent music scene associated with the cassette that burgeoned internationally in the second half of the 1970s.
Public Image Ltd are an English post-punk band formed by lead vocalist John Lydon, guitarist Keith Levene, bassist Jah Wobble, and drummer Jim Walker in May 1978. The group's line-up has changed frequently over the years; Lydon has been the sole constant member.
Cultural Amnesia (CA) are an English post-punk music group, first active between 1979 and 1983 as participants in the so-called cassette culture of the late 1970s and early 1980s in the UK. During this first period the band released three cassette albums: Video Rideo (1981), The Uncle of the Boot (1983) and Sinclair's Luck (1983) on English and German record labels, and contributed to a number of compilation albums. Early on in his career, CA worked with the late Geff Rushton of Coil, who wrote a handful of songs for them and who was an important supporter and enabler due to his contacts as editor of Stabmental magazine, arranging most of their releases and providing constant encouragement. The band has become more widely known since 2000 following release of a number of compilations of their early '80s music in which the members of the group have been fully involved. Since the late '90s the band has also been occasionally active in the recording of new music and there have been a number of releases of new material since the early 2000s.
Julian Keith Levene was an English musician who was a founding member of both the Clash and Public Image Ltd (PiL). While Levene was in PiL, their 1978 debut album Public Image: First Issue reached No 22 in the UK album charts, and its lead track "Public Image" broke the top 10 UK singles chart.
Metal Box is the second studio album by Public Image Ltd, released by Virgin Records on 23 November 1979. The album takes its name from the round metal canister which contained the initial pressings of the record. It was later reissued in standard vinyl packaging as Second Edition in February 1980 by Virgin Records in the United Kingdom, and by Warner Bros. Records and Island Records in the United States.
Falling A Records is a British Essex, England-based independent record label, founded in the late 1970s by Barry Lamb and Peter Ashby., born out of the D.I.Y cassette movement. It owned a shop in Clacton-on-Sea which sold new and second hand records, distributed fanzines such as New Crimes, Vague, Vox, Flipside, Juniper beri-beri, Blam!, and D.I.Y magazines/comics including the very first copies of Viz. It also distributed leaflets for various causes such as "anti-apartheid" and "anti-vivisection", music and politics being interlinked at the time.
In the early 1980s, English band The Insane Picnic were one of the pioneering D.I.Y. cassette bands, composed of members Peter Ashby, Barry Douglas Lamb and Owen Turley. They recorded several releases for the English independent record label Falling A Records. As well as regularly appearing in many fanzines, they were also often featured in the mainstream music papers with favourable reviews in Melody Maker, Sounds and NME, also featuring on several occasions in the Sounds Obscurist chart and Psychedelic chart and were favourites of pirate radio stations Liverpool City Radio and Andromeda.
Spasmodic Caress were an English post punk/new wave band, formed by Peter Masters, that played many gigs along the East Coast in Essex, Ipswich, Colchester and London between 1979 and 1984. They recorded a track for the 4AD Records 12" compilation Presage(s) in 1980 and performed at 4ad sponsored gigs in London with other 4ad artists including Modern English, In Camera and Bauhaus. Another track "Register of Electors" was recorded at the same time and is now included in the download version of Presages. They also released two albums, Hillside '79 and Fragments Of on Falling A Records. Bassist Peter Ashby went on to form The Insane Picnic with Barry Lamb.
Public Image: First Issue is the debut studio album by English rock band Public Image Ltd, released in 1978 by record label Virgin.
A demo is a song or group of songs typically recorded for limited circulation or for reference use, rather than for general public release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas in a fixed format, such as cassette tape, compact disc, or digital audio files, and to thereby pass along those ideas to record labels, producers, or other artists.
You Give Love a Bad Name is the fourth studio album released by American punk rock musician GG Allin, recorded with his backing band the Holy Men. Reissues credit the release mistakenly to GG Allin and the Criminal Quartet.
Lo-fi is a music or production quality in which elements usually regarded as imperfections in the context of a recording or performance are present, sometimes as a deliberate choice. The standards of sound quality (fidelity) and music production have evolved over the decades, meaning that some older examples of lo-fi may not have been originally recognized as such. Lo-fi began to be recognized as a style of popular music in the 1990s, when it became alternately referred to as DIY music. Some subsets of lo-fi music have become popular for their perceived nostalgic and/or relaxing qualities, which originate from the imperfections that define the genre.
Commercial Zone is an album of studio recordings by Public Image Ltd., recorded in 1982 and 1983, and released in 1984 by PiL founding guitarist Keith Levene. Commercial Zone includes five songs that were later re-recorded for PiL's fourth official studio album, This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get (1984) – for this reason, Commercial Zone is often considered to be an earlier/alternative version of that album.
This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get is the fourth studio album by the English post-punk band Public Image Ltd, released on 6 July 1984 by Virgin Records. It includes the single "Bad Life" and a re-recorded version of a "This Is Not a Love Song", which had been a No. 5 UK and international hit when released as a single in 1983.
Ken Lockie is an English singer-songwriter and producer, best known as the creative force behind English new wave band Cowboys International and as a sometime collaborator with John Lydon in Public Image Ltd.
Peter Ashby is an English musician and composer, and a founder member of the bands Frenzid Melon, Spasmodic Caress and the insane picnic, as well as co-founder of Falling A Records with Barry Lamb. He was the original bass player and composer in Spasmodic Caress and featured on the track "Hit the Dead", which appeared on the Presage(s) 12' on 4AD Records in 1980, and also on all tracks of Hillside '79 and Fragments of, both of which were released on Falling A Records. After leaving Spasmodic Caress, he became a multi-instrumentalist and composer in the insane picnic, playing on all of their releases.
Underground, Inc. was a Chicago-based subsidiary of Invisible Records, consisting of a collective of independent labels, producing various studio albums by Invisible Records artists, side projects and compilations with the same focus on being artist driven as its parent label. Music ranged from indie, goth, electro, punk, and industrial.
Force is the fifth studio album by the English post-punk band A Certain Ratio, released in November 1986 by Factory Records; their final release on the label. Stuart James co-produced the album with the band. It was recorded and mixed between July and August 1986 at Yello 2 Studios in Stockport.
C86 is a cassette compilation released by the British music magazine NME in 1986, featuring new bands licensed from British independent record labels of the time. As a term, C86 quickly evolved into shorthand for a guitar-based music genre characterized by jangling guitars and melodic power pop song structures, although other musical styles were represented on the tape. In its time, it became a pejorative term for its associations with so-called "shambling" and underachievement. The C86 scene is now recognized as a pivotal moment for independent music in the UK, as was recognized in the subtitle of the compilation's 2006 CD issue: CD86: 48 Tracks from the Birth of Indie Pop. 2014 saw the original compilation reissued in a 3CD expanded edition from Cherry Red Records; the 2014 box-set came with an 11,500-word book of sleevenotes by one of the tape's original curators, former NME journalist Neil Taylor.