Bouncing In The Red, 1981: A compilation of bands from Birmingham

Bouncing In The Red, 1981

This is a really cool compilation. Steel Pulse are a fairly well known reggae band, so I won't talk about them, this track by them is just okay. That Wide Boys track, I love the groove on that. The singer is this soulful mod-sounding dude, but yet the music is sortof dubby & funky. Excellent guitar sound. Fantastic post-punk. Fashion I already posted a 7" record of, and if you go to their myspace you'll see the singer has assembled a band and is still actively making music, this track should be available on CD in the next year or so. Dangerous Girls will be known to people who own the Messthetics comps (hyped2death.com). I used to be really nuts about that band until I bought three CD's of them from the drummer online and found they couldn't sustain my interest after awhile. Denizens are on Messthetics as well, and I was never nuts about them. This track is okay. The UB40 track is an instrumental (kindof neat, an instrumental by them). My friend tells me this track appeared on their first album. The Steve Gibbons Band track is hilarious, kindof like Nick Lowe I guess. I guess Stiff label fans would like that, but to me it's just too goofy. As for the Ferrari track - damnit I love jazzy shit like that with horns. Danceable, even. Ricky Cool & The Icebergs is a great band name. It sounds like hoppy boppy music from the 1940's though. Not bad, just odd. Rainmaker - back to the funky jazzy fun! An instrumental, very good stuff. Mean Street Dealers (love that band name, beats Manic Street Preachers anyday) is punkish pop, but I guess people would probably call it punk. It's certainly competent enough. I think those synths in the background are a WASP? Ha! As if I really know my synthesizer brands. Seems to me they try to be Can at the end and fail miserably, though. Quads - wow! A track I'd never heard from the Quads before, how cool. I've got a few other tracks from them, just a few. This isn't really what I would have expected from them. Is this power pop? Or is it too jerky & odd? Would early XTC approve? Haha.


Here's the tracklisting:
Steel Pulse - Biko's Kindred Lament
Wide Boys - Forty Million
Fashion - Let Go
Dangerous Girls - Clinically Dead
Denizens - Small Wonder
UB40 - 25%
Steve Gibbons Band - Sunny Day
Ferrrari - Rio
Ricky Cool & The Icebergs - Wait A Minute Baby
Rainmaker - Cruisin'
Mean Streat Dealers - I Don't Want To Die Young
Quads - In The Night